The Isuki Chronicles
by thesepeopleareus
Summary: THIS is why little children were never allowed into the Akatsuki; annoying, sweet, manipulative, conniving... It's a wonder Pein didn't have Isuki killed before she was even born! I swear, that kid is nothing but trouble on wheels -without the wheels...
1. There IS A Reason

_This is another offshoot story of my real story, yet has nothing to do with the plot from "Deidara's Happy Story". (If I keep going like this I'll have more offshoots than story!)_

_Anyway, this story was inspired by my friend Maddie, and my story. She has some really messed up ideas at times, and one of them was: "What if Itachi and Michiko (my OC) had a kid?" I told her it wouldn't be good for the story, and I wrote this to show her._

_I think she believes me now._

* * *

There _is_ A Reason...

Itachi felt his foot connect sharply and briefly with something soft as an automatic reaction when he felt a sharp pain in his left index finger.

He scowled and examined it, noting another set of pinprick holes that seeped blood slowly out through the first three layers of skin.

And right on cue the wailing began.

He shot a glare at the little monstrosity that sobbed uncontrollably over by the wall, where his foot had sent it. Sighing, he got to his feet and trudged over to her, squatting down and lifting her chin up. "Isuki, what's wrong?"

Isuki didn't even look at him; she just cried even harder, jerking her head away from his hand. Her own little hand shot out at him and hit his nose, making his eyes water briefly.

Itachi snorted and drew himself up, walking away slowly. "Fine, don't tell me. I don't really care anyway." He glanced back at her over his shoulder to see her look away suddenly, sniffling loudly.

He smiled.

Casually strolling back over to her, Itachi reached down quickly and swept her up in his arms, carrying her over one shoulder.

"Put me down!" she squealed between giggles. "Put me down!"

"Oh no, you're coming with me. My finger tells me you're getting hungry again."

He made his way to the kitchen, narrowly avoiding bumping into Hidan in the hall, who gave him a Look. Scowling in return, Itachi set Isuki down on the counter and told her not to move. She squirmed seditiously before settling down.

He pulled that odd little device they had for bleeding rabbits out of the cabinet and removed the storage unit, swirling his finger around in it for a while before sticking it in her mouth and letting her suck the blood off. It was really a simple process.

Isuki made a face. "'S cold."

Itachi sighed and turned his back to her, lifting up the little jar and breathing a tiny fire over it until it was just warm enough to seem alive. He tried again, and she smiled around his finger. Then she bit him again.

"Dammit, Isuki, would you _stop that?!_" He jerked his finger out of her mouth and massaged it, wincing at the sting left by her miniscule fangs. _I can't wait until you can pull your fangs in…_ he thought wistfully. He looked up and saw she was sobbing again, face crumpled up in distress.

"No, no, don't cry again," he pleaded futilely.

He picked her up off the counter and held her snugly, closing his eyes and rocking her back and forth. "You just can't keep biting me," he whispered. "I'll look like an acupuncture addict."

Isuki wrapped her short arms loosely around his neck and rested her head against his shoulder, hiccupping quietly.

"There, that's better," he cooed. "I'm sorry." Suddenly he felt her lift her head and reach out, and he turned to see what she had noticed. Grinning, he set her down and watched her shoot off and hug Michiko's legs.

"Mommy!" she squeaked happily, looking up and raising her arms. "Pick me up!"

Michiko complied, swinging Isuki up into the air before propping her up in the crook of her arm. She gave Itachi a slightly puzzled look when he started chuckling quietly.

"She bit me again," he explained. "Second time in the last five minutes."

Michiko frowned at Isuki, who looked away guiltily. "Daddy kicked me!" she accused innocently.

Michiko merely arched an eyebrow. "Again?"

"Again," Itachi agreed sullenly. "But she started it--"

"_Who's_ the three year-old?" she interrupted scornfully, sounding tired. "Besides, she's still teething, and--"

"_Normal_ children don't make their parents _bleed _when they teethe!" he returned abrasively.

"Tell me, Itachi," she said acidly, getting a better hold on Isuki, "did you ever actually expect to have a 'normal' child?"

"…Admittedly, no, but I would have settled for something a little less _unnatural_," he spat. "Something that didn't consider me a primary food source!"

Isuki started to cry again, even louder than when Itachi had kicked her by instinct; she was highly attuned to the atmosphere of conversations, especially the ones that counted as "lively discussions".

"There," Michiko retorted. "Are you satisfied?"

"She would cry if she got hit with a _feather_!" he shouted over Isuki's copious sobbing. "It's not _my_ fault she's such a wuss."

Michiko gave him a stony glare and hugged Isuki tightly, patting her head until she stopped crying. She set her down and propelled her gently toward the door.

"Go play with Deidara."

"Okay!" she accepted brightly, tearing out of the room in search of her favorite freak.

"Look," Itachi said defensively when she turned back around, "all I'm saying is, why couldn't we have had an obedient, emotionally stable little boy?"

Michiko snorted. "Wasn't _my_ chromosome," she scoffed.

Grasping at straws, Itachi dug up the argument he'd buried years ago. "We should have killed her while we had the chance, back when she was still an it."

"… I hoped I would never hear you say that again…" Michiko muttered, unusually vapid. "How can you _still_ think that? How can you want your own daughter dead?"

"She's simply a burden, Michiko. Not to mention Sir Leader hates the whole concept of children, and--"

"Right, and _that_ means that it's the word of the gods or something? Come on, Itachi. What happened to the person I used to know who took orders as a personal affront?" She dropped her head and refused to look at him, sounding pained when she whispered, "What happened to the man I always doted on?"

Itachi blenched. Michiko hated showing weakness, and next to outright crying this was as close as it got. She was so… out of character... it really worried him.

"…I--"

"You would terminate your… our… _my_ child, on the word of a completely martinettish despot?" she asked quietly. "Fine. But be tactful enough to keep your imprudence, your follies, to yourself." And she drifted away.

Itachi opened his mouth to call after her, but stopped himself. He bit his lip and turned, banging his head repeatedly against the counter, drilling the idea into his head. _Idiot._ _Idiot._ _Idiot._ _Idiot._ _Idiot._ _Idiot._ _Idiot._ _Idiot._ _Idiot…_ _Don't listen to me, Mich._

He stood up blearily, leaning back against the refrigerator and sliding to the floor, where he sat for the better part of an hour, asking himself questions to which the answers he knew not.

* * *

Michiko shivered once more and knocked on Deidara's door, hugging herself tightly, trying to keep herself from falling to pieces.

"Come in, yeah."

Michiko's hand slipped off the doorknob the first time she tried to open it, and she fell forward, leaning against the door in surrender. She could feel the tears trying to come, but she wouldn't let them. Instead she banged her forehead on the wood once before letting all of her tense muscles loosen and slumped over even more.

When the door opened she fell through and made no effort to catch herself. But Deidara did, scooping her up effortlessly before she made it to the floor. Michiko distantly noticed how his color fell through from bright yellow to pastel green.

"Good gods," he muttered, carrying her over to his bed. "I was warned you would be upset, but you're practically in a state."

Michiko shivered again at the sound of his voice, recognizing a tone she vaguely remembered hearing before: consideration, sensitivity, kindness. When he laid her down she sat up slowly, painstakingly, and stared at the opposite wall.

"Mommy!" Isuki squealed, running over and tugging on the knee of her pants. "…Mommy?"

Michiko moved her sightless gaze to stare at her for a minute before going back to the wall. She thought she might have smelled toilet paper on her head, but she wasn't sure and she didn't care. She dimly heard Deidara pick her up and carry her over to the door.

"Why don't you go play with Sasori?" he suggested.

"Okay!" she accepted brightly, tearing out of the room in search of her favorite chew-toy.

Once Isuki had gone Deidara sat down next to her on the edge of the mattress. "What's wrong?" he asked, wrapping a concerned arm around her shoulders.

Michiko hung her head, resting her face in her hands. "…Itachi…" she mumbled, leaning into him.

"Is that all?" he responded flippantly. "You should be used to that by now; you guys fight all the time, yeah. The apologizing is what keeps you coming back."

Michiko shook her head insistently. "It's worse. It was like, before Isuki, when he said we should kill it, but worse, because she's here now and he said it anyway. He knows her, and he'd die before admitting that he's overly fond of her, but he still brought it up again."

The tears tried to force their way out again, but she beat them back with the rusted remains of her iron will. Hiccupping quietly, she hugged him tightly and buried her face in the hollow where his neck met his shoulder.

"O…kay…" Deidara paused a moment before he hugged her back, patting her head. "You'll be _fine, _yeah. You guys _always_ end up fine. Always…" he trailed off, and Michiko looked up curiously to find his color faded to a bitter blue. He shook it off and went back to worried green, but still that little thread of blue remained woven in. "Surely he didn't mean it," he continued. "He must have been… frazzled, or something. What _happened_?"

Michiko drew herself together and pulled away from him. Drained, she held her forehead in her hand and whispered wryly, "She bit him."

"See? It's not like this was some premeditated argument; it was just his reaction to the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, yeah."

Michiko was unconvinced. "He wouldn't have been able to explain it if he hadn't thought about it."

Deidara groaned. "Why are you so dead set on disbelieving anything that might indicate he didn't have the express purpose of hurting you in the forefront of his mind when he brought that up? …Or are you just being stubborn?" he asked sardonically.

"Of course not!" she snapped, turning on him with a vengeance. "He's a smarmy sadist; humans are more entertaining for him than anything else." Michiko paused, allowing an old thought to float unbidden to the surface of her mind. "Sometimes I think the thing that would make him happiest is having someone he could pick apart piece by piece and then put back together again. And sometimes I think that's me."

"Oh come now, you don't really _believe_ that, do you?"

Michiko glanced at him loweringly.

"Oh… Here, here's a test for you," he said, seemingly seeking any idea he could seize and offer up. " Ask yourself if you know him, I mean really _know_ him, yeah. Good?"

"Yes."

"Now ask yourself if that sounds like something he would do to you."

"Yes."

"Now, are you still being stubborn or is that an honest answer?" he asked, accusing.

Michiko was about to retort when she froze. _Was_ it an honest answer? Honestly, this was _Deidara_ she was talking to; she could be blatantly honest.

"So, taking into consideration the fact that you probably know him a lot better than he knows himself, do you still think he would intend to hurt you?"

"…Well, --" Michiko stopped when Eris poked her head through the door.

"The real question here," she observed, floating into the room, "is whether you know _him_, or the him that he _lets _you know."

This sent Michiko into a downward spiral. She hugged her legs to her chest and hid behind her knees, trying to figure out which voice in her head she should be listening to. At the same time she overheard a conversation taking place nearby, one that went straight through her without leaving behind any sign it had ever been there.

"No need to go off your head, Deidara, I'm just helping out."

"Some help you are, yeah. Why don't you go butt heads with Sasori, or bolster your affair? That's all you ever do anyway."

"Nah; Isuki's chewing him up, and he's downright weird around her. I think he tries to practice being humane on her."

"There, doesn't that give you an opportunity to chew him _out_, yeah?"

"No, because the little atrocity thinks she can bite me and I won't react, just like him. She's made a game out of seeing how long it takes him to notice that she's bitten him, you know. That's all well and good when you can just sandpaper and buff yourself, but the majority of people _bleed_."

"Yes, that seems to be the problem, yeah."

"What, people bleeding?"

"Exactly. The blood is sort of the whole point."

"I don't get it. Why doesn't Itachi just use an illusion on her that makes human blood taste like crap? Then she'd only go for the rabbits."

"…You make a valid point."

Michiko felt someone shake her by the shoulder. She looked up muzzily, finding Deidara smelling like xanthophyll looks.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" she sulked, turning away.

"Eris says you should have Itachi use an illusion on Isuki that makes human blood taste horrible, yeah."

Michiko thought it over briefly. "Sure," she muttered, wondering why the hells he would bother when it would _obviously_ be _so_ much easier just to _kill _her.

"Oh come on, Michiko, he can't have been _that_ convincing," Deidara averred, as if reading her mind.

_No,_ she thought to herself, _only Itachi does that._

"He doesn't need to be convincing if he means it. …Jeez, don't glare at me like that."

She felt Deidara sit down again and wrap his arm around her waist. "Listen to me, Michiko. You _have _to listen to me. I'm the person with the _least_ incentive to keep you and Itachi together, yet here I am. Doesn't that count for _some_thing?"

"But Eris--"

"Is the Goddess of Chaos, among other things, and therefore has to try stirring things up, yeah."

"That's true," Eris agreed heatedly. "I don't care to think about what could happen if I started being all nice all the time."

"See? It's her job. _Your_ job is to make sure Isuki grows up, for starters, and then that she grows up well. That requires an amorous environment created by two parents who don't spit fire at each other every other day, sending the mother to seek comfort from another man. …Wow, that sounds bad even when _I_ say it."

Michiko smiled.

"I must be hallucinating; I could have sworn I just saw you smile," he simpered, pulling her closer and wrapping his other arm around her as well.

Michiko chuckled. "How can you be so sure that's what she needs?"

"Well, I didn't get it by any stretch, and look at how I turned out."

He sounded so wretched underneath his casual observation, Michiko turned and hugged him in return. "I would be very pleased if Isuki turned out with half the soul you have," she whispered sincerely.

"And I'm sure Itachi feels the same way. About Isuki, of course, not me," he added.

Michiko drew back and knitted her eyebrows together. "Whatever happened to you two, anyway? When I walk between you I feel like I'm about to get struck by lightning."

Deidara shrugged. "I'm not sure; I always thought he was a bastard. Maybe he just rubbed me the wrong way, but I think we just took an instant disliking to each other."

"Is that all?" she responded, imitating Deidara's flippant tone from earlier. "Why can't you just shake it off and be friends?"

"It wouldn't work -- the fact that we hate each other would always come between us."

"Fine," Michiko sighed. "I still think you could at least make the effort."

"I could, but I run on vindictiveness," he explained sarcastically. "Besides, I don't think I could get along too well with someone who can toss around the idea of killing a child, even without any seriousness and simply as an instrument to win an argument."

Michiko folded back in on herself, withdrawing from the conversation.

"Look! That time it wasn't my fault!"

"Shut up, Eris."

"Hoohoo, tou_chy…"_

Deidara hugged her again. "Michiko, don't you dare go emo on me; we already established the fact that Itachi didn't _mean_ what he said. …Don't ignore me, either. I mean, you _had _the child, didn't you? Doesn't _that_ count for _any_thing?"

"Don't be so sure."

"_Eris, don't you dare --_"

"A man can plant a tree for many reasons," the goddess continued, unheeding of Deidara's threatening order. "Maybe it's because he likes trees. Or maybe it's because he knows that one day he'll need the firewood."

Michiko felt like she was collapsing. She couldn't really think of anything except Eris' allusion, so she didn't even try, and she picked up that abysmal spiral where she left off.

"Thank you, shrew," Deidara said icily. "Why don't you go make someone else miserable? Go bother Kisame and Maddie; you know how much they hate it when you tease them."

"I think I'll go do that."

After a brief lull, Deidara pulled her in and held her close, trapping her arms between them. "Don't do this to yourself, yeah."

Michiko was surprised -- in a detached sort of way -- at the way he sounded so… _tender_.

"You've pulled through worse, by any account. And now you have to more than ever, for Isuki if you won't for yourself, Mich."

Michiko stiffened. That name, that old, childhood nickname, dredged up ancient memories for her. Of Sasuke, and of the fresh, innocent Itachi she had grown so attached to. She laughed quietly at the memory of how he had introduced her to some of the ANBU that one time, when they had both been needling each other nonstop:

_"Hello, this is my best friend, Michiko. She's been attached to me at the hip ever since we were four, and every time I have her removed she grows back."_

She laughed some more, moving her arms and hugging Deidara fiercely, squeezing him to her tightly before she released him.

"You're amazing," she informed him, kissing him on the cheek and laughing again when he blinked, confused. She grabbed him by the hand and dragged him over to the door, where she hugged him yet again. "You always know what to say, without calculating or having to think it over. And I love you," she added, kissing him once, very briefly, on the lips. "Just not in the way you'd like."

Michiko waited with uncertainty as he stood there, not moving, color changing to something like a topaz whortleberry, if that makes any sense. Tentatively, she dusted off his shoulder before she slipped out the door to go find Isuki and pry her off of Sasori.

"Thank you," she whispered. "For what it's worth, I think you'd make a great psychologist."

When she was only ten feet from the room she heard a crash, like the sound of something valuable being broken courtesy of an expedient meeting with the wall. She picked up her pace a little, not wishing to be around when Kakuzu nosed his way over to Deidara's room.

_Now,_ she told herself, _time to grow back._

* * *

_So, I will be adding these chapters quickly, seeing as I've already written them (just in need of some tweaking...). The chapters will jump in increments of two to three years, so in the next one Isuki is five, then seven, then 10, etc..._


	2. Resilience

__

Yeah, well, I'm back from the dead. w00t! I've had so much going on this took me nearly forever to do once I got my random inspiration, but it was so satisfying that all those initial worries about doing something so wonky melted away. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

"I'm not a babysitter, yeah."

Michiko's shoulders sagged and she released a dramatic sigh. "Yes, I _know_, I was just wondering if you could, you know, _try_. For me. I mean, honestly, I haven't been outside the base in years! …I've forgotten what the rest of the world looks like…"

"Well, leaving isn't exactly going to refresh your memory."

"…Not visually, I know, but the smells, the feelings… I miss it."

"That's weak, yeah. Why me? Sasori doesn't feel anything when she bites him, yeah. Ask him."

"Okay, for one, Sasori is an inconsiderate block of ice. And Isuki needs to figure out that it's not okay to bite people."

"Also pathetic, yeah. Why do you really want to leave?"

"…I'm exhausted. I need some… alone time."

"Right, which is why Itachi's going, too?"

"Deidara, you don't _know_. 'Alone' doesn't mean just _me_ anymore."

"Ah. So, by your logic, being 'alone' is a cure for exhaustion?"

"You know, never mind. That was a stupid idea. Forget I even asked."

"Michiko, wait. …Does it have to be _me?_"

"…I can't _trust_ anyone else. But it's fine, just forget it. You obviously have better things to do."

* * *

Deidara started when the door slammed open and brought up a hand to shield his food from the cold.

Isuki wobbled in through the snow, leaving sets of melting footprints and a light dusting of white powder on the floor. The child then proceeded to fall over and roll across the now damp floor giggling. After several attempts she succeeded in standing up and darted jerkily into a hallway.

Michiko trailed after, drifting to the couch and falling on it limply. She didn't need to tilt her head sideways because she didn't need to breathe, so her face remained stuffed into the fabric. Her slightly curled fingers brushed against the floor and her head was merely a convoluted mess of black hair flecked with melting snowflakes.

"What's wrong?"

"Tired," came her muffled response.

Isuki reappeared, slowly pulling Itachi toward the open door by the sleeve of his cloak and looking back at him a few times as if to make sure he was still there. This occurrence was normal.

"Why, yeah?"

_"Motherhood,_" she grumbled, shifting slightly.

That seemed to pique Itachi's attention. "What?" Isuki glanced back at him when suddenly she wasn't pulling him forward anymore. As a matter of fact, she was being dragged backwards as Itachi moved to the back of the couch. "Michiko?"

Isuki continued to tug on his cloak urgently. "Daddy, come look!" She leaned back at an impossible angle, clinging to the fabric.

"What do you mean 'what'?" Michiko demanded quietly. Meanwhile, Itachi had slipped out of his cloak. When he let go Isuki fell over backwards, slowly obscured from view as the undulating cloth fell on her. When gravity had done its job there was a quivering, softly sniffling Isuki-shaped lump of cloak on the floor.

"Oh, no," Michiko chuckled after a short pause. "Focus on the _existing_ child."

Itachi almost grinned, but Deidara couldn't help but feel he looked relieved, which didn't actually make any sense. The cloak hiccupped and curled up on its side dejectedly.

Michiko went limp again, just lying there like a rag doll. "'Mn gtired," she muttered, burrowing deeper into the couch cushion.

Itachi sighed and bent over, gathering up the edges of his cloak, slinging it over his shoulder like a sack and carrying Isuki away. The child squirmed and giggled helplessly, fighting half-heartedly for freedom - like a kitten in a knotted bag with a brick that doesn't even know the meaning of the word "river".

Deidara marveled at the fact that he had faded into the background. Almost like he hadn't even been there.

His rice was cold.

He abandoned it for a lost cause and stood up, waltzing over to Michiko's side. "So, did you have fun?"

A strangled snort managed to make itself heard through the couch. "Oh, _yes_, we had _so_ much _fun_."

"So what happened?" he inquired, more out of curiosity than concern; Michiko was more than capable. He had no need to worry about her. She worried about Isuki enough for both of them.

"Oh, not much. You know, the usual: we start snowman, she chases squirrels, I chase her, she comes back inside and wants to show Itachi what 'she' did."

"She didn't?"

"Of course not! Have you ever seen a four year-old try to make a snowman? It's pathetic. So I do everything and she takes credit because she's learning how to be conniving."

"And you don't discourage this, yeah?"

"You have to be conniving to survive conniving people. And she looks so cute when she shows off what I've done."

"The snowman, yeah."

"Actually," she corrected, finally rolling over to face him, "it was more of a snow_kitty_ by the end. With ears and everything."

Michiko didn't add anything else, and Deidara certainly had nothing to say other than something pathetic like, "how cute," and that sure as hells didn't give him any options; your chances of survival were shot if people thought you'd _gone_ _soft_. His attention was diverted when Michiko stretched, arching her back and crawling over the couch. Her eyes popped back up over the edge and almost seemed to see him when she cocked an eyebrow at him.

"If you ever decide to go sight-seeing behind the couch, you'll have to be sure to invite me along – there's some pretty interesting scenery back here that I'm sure would prove fascinating upon closer inspection." He couldn't restrain a laugh at the gravity of her tone and the way she eased back out of sight, but that laughter was abruptly cut off when he crashed his train of thought. He realized he didn't know whether she was joking or not, and, considering that, whether there were any implications in it. Resigned, he sat on the couch and peered over the back to see Michiko just lying there on the floor, arm resting over her blind eyes.

It almost made him want to reconsider letting her escape for a while. Almost, except for the fact that he didn't know the first thing about what to do with a child. He hardly remembered being a child himself. There had been no good memories to give him incentive enough to remember being a child. Not to mention Isuki's bothersome habit of being… bothersome. Deidara didn't know if that was how children were in general or if it was just Isuki, but that didn't even apply to the situation at hand. Point made, Isuki was an annoying, bothersome and foreign creature to him, and he didn't want to be responsible for her. Especially when considering all the things that could happen in – how long would she be gone, anyway? Several days? Not paying attention and inadvertently maiming or otherwise heinously injuring Isuki would not be the best way to score brownie points with Michiko.

She made no move to get up, and it really looked like she needed the rest, so something in the back of his mind told him to leave her alone. He mused over the pros and cons of life in general and all its facets when he finally found his room and his bed, the latter of which he sat upon while his fingers met the familiar surface of a momentarily shapeless lump of clay.

Deidara needed to do some thinking.

* * *

He had decided to give it a chance. For Michiko.

After all, how much trouble could a single child be? All he really had to do was be sure she didn't die and everything would be fine. Children didn't need constant attention, really. They just needed to have someone make sure they didn't burn anything down. There wasn't actually that much he really needed to know about children, considering he didn't have any. He was only going to watch one. For a short – hopefully – extent of time.

Deidara's intent was to ask Michiko about that time variable when he knocked on her door.

"Michiko?" No answer. He tried again.

He was very reluctant to open the door. He felt he couldn't trust the other side when the door to Michiko and Itachi's room was closed. It was almost always closed, which meant the room – and what took place within – was in general very untrustworthy. Indeed, once scarred for life Deidara was quite content to avoid that which had scarred him.

"Michiko?" He grimaced at the note of desperation in his tone. Why did he even care? It wasn't his job or anything. In fact, he was just being _helpful_, which was rather depressing in and of itself. Shouldn't he have been off killing people and such? Ransacking villages and watching everything go up in smoke and bursts of fire? That reminded him of something…

He plucked that something from his pocket. Something vaguely humanoid in shape, it had lost its flexibility long ago. It looked like a child, but it was blackened and crisp now. An eye was missing, the mock hair singed away. It had belonged to a little girl, once.

He had watched her burn.

Now it was his, but that shouldn't stay true much longer. It should belong to a little girl. It exuded a feeling that it should be held and caressed by blessedly smooth little fingers, perhaps to counteract its crisped exterior.

For a few minutes the world had burned.

Closing his fist around the little doll, he knocked again, and he resolved that this would be the last time. No matter the result, he would not knock again.

There was no answer.

_Dammit_.

He glanced around nervously, reluctantly putting his hand on the doorknob. It tingled, he could have sworn. It tingled under his hand and left a residual stinging sensation in his mouth.

The corners of his mouth twisted down, he pushed the door open, not even half-heartedly but as if he was silently willing it not to open at all. The hinges gave off a weak creak, not theatrically tortuous in the least, but neither did it harbor a very calming quality. The sound grated on his nerves just as the metal grated against the door pin.

He wasn't sure which was worse; the fact that the door opened at all, albeit very slightly, or the knowledge that he would have to push it again. The thought was discarded in its entirety and, since nothing had been thrown at the door, he decided it was safe to enter.

It was empty. Which, when push came to shove, was quite a relief. He crossed the bare floor and glanced out the window at the little rabbit compound. No, Michiko wasn't feeding. Great. Now what was he supposed to do? …Where else did Michiko actually go?

Come to think of it, he didn't really know much about what Michiko did during the day. He did know she didn't leave the base much. But was that by choice? That would make her a homebody. She was usually busy doing something, though, so that must make her… a busybody. Because people who stayed home and didn't do anything were considered slobs. So, following this logic, she should be somewhere in the base, doing something, who knew what.

A fat lot of good that did him.

So he was doomed to wander until he found her. On the other hand, he could have just left it for a lost cause and gone to do something productive. But if he simply surrendered Michiko would undoubtedly ask him again, and it would give a more positive impression if he were to volunteer this simplistic service than appearing badgered into submission by her constant request.

Deidara looked around with a distinct lack of concentration, his mind continually flitting back to inviting thoughts of clay and not-so-pleasant flashes brimming with the screams of fire in his mind.

He had burned her.

Fist tightening around the brittle doll he shrugged it off, deciding that the next and only other time he would think of that thing would be when he pawned it off on Isuki and in doing so pawned off the screams burned into his mind.

His focus was drawn back to the real world sharply when he bumped into something and an unfamiliar wet seeped through the arm of his sweatshirt – because it was _cold_. Not the wet, which was actually pleasantly warm, but the weather. It was unbearable. Deidara was convinced his core temperature was not supposed to differ so astronomically from that of his skin. It was unnatural. He would love to simply sleep through the cold. He was so warm when he was asleep. The sensation hung around even after he woke up…

And then his feet touched the floor.

Gods, how he hated the floor.

The wet was starting to cool and he looked up irritably to find the source of this discomfort, and his vision filled with the violent contrast of red on white.

Hidan had a clearly defined hole in his chest and the freshly red blood not directly leaking from the wound manifested itself as translucent pink rivulets running down his sweat-slicked skin. Deidara was no stranger to the sight of blood, but its vivacity managed to surprise him every single time. And now the lifeless fluid was blossoming over his sleeve.

"Hey, have you seen Michiko anywhere?"

At first all he received in return was a cold scum-of-the-earth look that took the opportunity to gleefully and yet silently remind him he was going to hell. Oh, yes, Deidara was constantly reminded that he was going to hell when he died, almost always by Hidan. Then the masochist's arm went slack and Deidara noticed the pike resting in the loose curve of his fingers. If he had been paying more attention he might have found some humor in the situation. Hidan was casually palming a bloodied pike. And him? He had a doll. A doll. And not even a nice doll, at that.

"Seriously? Where the fuck have you been? They left an hour ago."

A beat, then: "'They' meaning, of course…"

"Michiko and Itachi, dipshit. Who else? Seriously."

"Right, of course, yeah. Anyone know where?"

"Who gives a fuck? Seriously, all they need's someplace with a bed, no shit, or some other fucking flat surface." Halfway to brandishing the pike, Hidan abandoned him. Given those few integral seconds to think, Deidara came to a sudden and violent realization.

Isuki was still there.

Oh, so they were playing a game with him, was that it? Just see if Deidara does what's expected without actually giving him the opportunity to volunteer? Well, guess what? Now he wasn't going to. Oh, yes, he had been about to say he'd do it, but then they go and leave him with no choice? No. He would not be boxed into watching a little demon-child, even if earlier he had been planning on going into the box of his own volition. It was the principle of the thing.

Food. That was what he needed: food. Then he could disappear from the world again and into his room, sculpting. Maybe now would have presented the perfect opportunity to make something for Michiko. Without her around it would be exponentially easier to keep her from discovering the existence of everything he'd ever made. Simple hiding was a waste of valuable time when the person having said object hidden from them didn't see with their eyes. The only way he'd be able to hide the presence of a gift from her knowledge would be to set off a peppermint bomb in his room, and his nose couldn't take that.

He dug through the kitchen fastidiously, searching for something that presented itself as even remotely appetizing and at the same time trying to fuzz out the taste of peppermint that had materialized on his tongue. Something, perhaps, that didn't look like it would squirm away before he got it in his mouth. In a dark corner, far back from the kitchen itself, buried in the back of a cabinet, he saw something interesting. It was square, and it was pale yellow, and it looked new. Bracing one hand on the countertop and stretching onto his toes, Deidara reached for it. He came within a few thick hairs of it before his arm lost its momentum and tried to return to a more natural, less pain-filled position.

His sleeve caught on something on the way out and stopped, leaving his arm at an angle human limbs were never meant to achieve with a star-bursting sting in his arm where it felt like a nerve was being pinched against bone. When he hopped back up onto his toes he snagged the strange food on several fingernails and discovered it was spongy, clinging to his fingers. The substance was about to be brought closer to his face for closer examination when one of the lower cabinet doors opened and slammed into his shin.

His hand had started to follow the reflex reaction to be pressed firmly against the bruised flesh and released his prize when he sternly ordered it to flail uselessly in an attempt to catch it before it hit the ground. And he might have managed such a feat had he not tripped over something that had latched onto his leg and fallen over, slamming into the floor on his side. The food was now a stiff puddle near his head. Deidara scowled and lifted his head to scout out what had tripped him up.

"Deidawa, I'm hungry," Isuki pleaded, looking up at him with wide eyes.

It was disgusting how cute she was.

"Then eat, yeah," he grunted, hooking his fingers onto the edge of the counter and pulling himself back up to a standing position. The child was still attached to him, arms wrapped around his calf, legs around his ankle and sitting on his foot, staring up at him guilelessly.

"How?"

How? What was that supposed to mean? How did she _eat?_ Like she didn't _know?_

"You don't know how to eat?" He took an experimental step and managed to move forward a fraction before his foot hit the floor with a dull thud. Isuki laughed and hugged his leg tighter.

"Wheeee…" she whispered, eyes screwed shut. Then they popped open again and something akin to a miniscule scowl crossed her face. "Do it again."

Deidara snorted. "No," he grumbled, pushing her off with his other foot. She rolled onto her back and curled up her legs, cocking her head to one side, giving her the appearance of a dead dog.

"Will you, play, with me? I'm, hungry."

"No." There, an answer to both proposals. Besides, weren't kids supposed to start getting smart sometime? You couldn't just enable them by giving them whatever they needed whenever they needed it. To Deidara, that was justification for what he did next.

"When you figure out how to eat, you can eat, yeah. I suppose you can just starve until then."

Isuki rolled precariously onto her feet and extended one scrawny arm to point at a cabinet. "'S up there," she squeaked. "But I don't, know, how it, works."

Deidara stared up at the killer cabinet. No way was he touching that thing again, after having his arm almost eaten. "Well then, go get it, yeah," he suggested without looking down at the child.

"You're bigger," she pointed out logically.

"Um, yes, but I won't always be here to help you, so try to get it yourself, yeah."

"Oh, okay!"

After a few futile minutes Deidara lifted her onto the countertop. "Try it from there."

Isuki stretched one arm again and barely managed to push the cabinet door open above her, tilting dangerously. She righted herself when Deidara discreetly pushed her forward again. A frown of adorably miscalculated concentration creased her small forehead. Her fingernails hardened and hooked into the seam of the wood on the inside lip of the cabinet and her feet flailed frantically for a while before she scrabbled up and sat there for a few seconds before flashing him a triumphant look and pulling herself onto the next shelf and disappearing from sight except for brief glimpses of her toes.

"It's, heavy," came her small voice.

"Well, just get it close to the edge and I'll take it, yeah." Deidara heard a scraping sound, then the bottom of that one weird thing Michiko and Itachi used on rabbits started to push out over the edge. He snatched it up before it fell off and broke or something equally catastrophic happened.

Needless to say it was… confusing. After setting it down on the counter and giving it a quick once over he still had no idea how it worked. Although, he could tell where the blood was supposed to end up because there was a glass cylinder on one side with rusty red caked to the inside, but other than that he was completely clueless. He wiggled the container thingy until it popped out of place so he could try to see how the blood got there when he saw, hidden behind the dried blood from the outside, a rolled up piece of paper. When it unfurled his shoulders tensed:

Figure it out or she'll starve. :D

Michiko

_Oh, wonderful._ He stuffed the paper back into the contraption carefully and stepped back, staring at it balefully. Isuki tugged on the hem of his sweater and tried to peer over the edge of the counter.

"How, does it, work?" she asked, looking up at him hopefully.

"You can just starve until you figure it out." After all, it wasn't his job. He hadn't agreed to anything. "Go entertain yourself, yeah."

"But I'm, hungry!"

"What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Mommy said, you, were going to take, care of me."

He bent over and looked her in the eye. "Mommy is a liar."

"Oh, okay. …I'm hungry."

"Not my problem. Why don't you take a nap or something?"

"I'm not, sleepy. I'm hungry. I want, to play." The child sniffed at him and walked away. He followed, curious at the fact that she wasn't behaving as one would expect of a normal, childish child.

"So, where have you been, yeah?"

Isuki looked back at him and went off balance with the tilt of her head. "In, the cabinet."

"Why the hel– …Why were you in a cabinet?" he demanded, trying not to hate her forever for crippling his shin.

The child continued trotting merrily through the halls. "So I could, cwy."

Well, that was certainly a little more profound than he'd expected.

"Mommy and Daddy, don't like it, when I cwy. They, say it's, beneath me. But I asked, Sasori, and he said, that was just the floor." If her explanation hadn't instilled a feeling of pity in him he might have allowed himself a partial smile at that last bit. Honestly, that was just like Sasori: figurative speech was completely wasted on him. Not that he didn't understand it, oh no, not by any stretch – he merely held it in contempt.

"Why were you crying?" This conversation had definitely taken a turn for the sad. Especially because it also meant the child wasn't really becoming very conniving, or she would have responded with something more appropriate, like, "I was lying in wait for unsuspecting prey in the cabinet, just so I could shatter your pathetic leg, Deidara. Ahahahaha!" Then again, someone truly conniving would never admit all their evil plots like that.

"Because Mommy, and Daddy left and, you don't want to, watch me. No one, loves me until they, get back."

"…You do realize that they still love you while they're gone, right?"

"Of course, sillyhead! But, no one _wants_, me except Mommy, and Daddy."

_Even _that_ might be stretching it a bit_, he mused. And his mind paused for a moment when Isuki stopped in front of a door. Then – and he could have sworn he felt his pupils dilate very suddenly – he recognized it. Oh, this was another one of those not-to-be-trusted doors, for sure.

"Isuki, what are you doing?" he asked in the tone of voice that, while still asking its prescribed question, managed to communicate the feeling, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Isuki, however, was apparently immune to the concept of a warning question. "I'm gonna, ask Sasori if he, wants to, play with me."

"Ah, that _might_ not be such a good idea, yeah." When was the last time he had seen Sasori? Several _days_, was it, since he'd been out of his room? Oh, and, coincidentally, guess who else he hadn't seen for days: …Eris! What a surprise! It was such simple math. Like 2+24. Or, perhaps more appropriately, 1+12.

"Why?"

"Because… Sasori is busy, yeah. He can't play with you right now." Deidara silently congratulated himself on the wonderful excuse.

Isuki looked at him , then back at the door, then back at him, and then she sat down with finality. "Then I will wait."

Oh, that definitely wasn't good. If stubborn enough, Isuki could end up waiting for hours, seeing as neither Sasori nor Eris needed to eat. Or sleep, for that matter. "Isuki, you'll have to wait forever, yeah." He had to bite his tongue before continuing. "…I'll play with you."

"No."

"What?"

"I don't, want to play with, you anymore, you meanyhead."

Oh, was that how it was going to be? "Fine, then. I didn't really want to play with you, anyway." He gathered a good atmosphere of indignance around him and stalked off. Just to see if it had any effect, he glanced back at her over his shoulder. Her tiny arms crossed and she stuck her tongue out at him spitefully.

He went to his room. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do, but he didn't need to be; all he needed was a lump of clay. His fingers moved without orders, shaping, smoothing, flaring, fanning. The object that now sat in his hand was completely foreign to him – he had no idea what to call it. It didn't even look terribly much like an animal. Disheartened, he set in on the bedside table and just sat there with nothing to do. Obviously this was not a night for sculpting, or he would have made something identifiable as a real creature. The things Isuki had started bringing home did not count as real.

Maybe, just ever so slightly possibly, this would be a night for _sleep_. There was a chance he could get some actual _rest_ for once. Slowly, almost warily, he lied down and stretched out. _Gods_ that felt good.

* * *

He couldn't tell what time it was when he woke up.

It was vaguely dark, and he was vaguely warm, and something was vaguely curled up against him. He blinked heavily and propped himself up on one elbow, glanced down, planted a hand on Isuki's back and pushed her off the bed, lying back down when he heard a soft thump.

* * *

The world was still dark when he woke up again, but he could see a little better.

Deidara somehow managed to talk himself into getting out of bed, which was quite the heroic accomplishment. His stomach did most of the talking.

Bits of dust and the like clung to the bottoms of his bare feet as they flumped to the kitchen, leading the rest of him lazily. His hand was cloaked in the long sleeve of his sweater and it pushed through his rumpled hair, rubbing his eye while he yawned into his other sleeve at the elbow. The world still upheld a muzzy haze when he peered into the depths of his new arch nemesis, the cabinet, therefore turning every possible meal into an unappetizing aberration with blurred edges. Something bright caught his eye, though. Something small, almost apologetically so, and cylindrical. It sloshed around inside when he picked it up, crawling up the edges of the glass before falling away and drying. Whatever it was, it was bright, bright green.

It was probably Sasori's.

Deidara was not inherently a very trusting individual. People couldn't be trusted to give you an opportunity to volunteer, doors that were closed were most often intended to remain in that condition, and bright liquids lying around were almost without exception detrimental to one's health.

He leaned against a wall for just a moment before abandoning the safety of the kitchen for the insecurity of the halls. Those halls took on a surprisingly labyrinth-like quality immediately after he woke up, and the things turned him around several times, of that he was sure. Nonetheless he found his way to the right door. He could tell because, not only was it closed, it gave of a _feeling_. Nothing tangible, just a profound feeling that if he opened it he was going to be eaten alive. And he couldn't very well just leave a container that more likely than not acted as a flimsy barrier to keep some sort of acidic poison away from the world lying around, what with Isuki loose in the base.

Oh, wait, never mind, there she was, asleep on the floor outside the door. Hey, that rhymed, didn't it? Ha. All curled up on her side like that in a tight little ball…

His blink was propelled by a vaguely familiar force: guilt. At least, that was the only logical explanation, even if his logic was still half-asleep. Logic was still logic, no matter what state it was in. Just because he wasn't totally awake yet didn't mean he wasn't him, either.

He didn't know whether it was him or the logic that ignored the child and pounded the door. The tingling in his hand afterwards started to wake him up. But that didn't mean he no longer felt the need to lean against a wall. He stared at the door blankly until it whooshed away and was replaced by Sasori.

"Geez, I think this thing just curdled, yeah," he muttered, glancing down at the cylinder suspended loosely in his fingers. "I'll take the murderous glare as a, 'Shrivel and die,' then?"

The only response he received was a brusque nod and a convulsive tightening of Sasori's fingers on the doorframe and the doorknob. Then, a slight glance at the floor, which was currently inhabited by a blinking Isuki, followed by another, sharper glare.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he mumbled, pushing his hair clumsily out of his face with the end of his sweater. This had no effect, because it fell right back into place. "Shut up."

This was met with a silent laugh.

"He didn't say anything," Eris objected with a grin, hooking her chin over Sasori's shoulder. She looked down at the now yawning Isuki as well, then back up at Deidara curiously. "Shouldn't you be keeping a closer watch on that thing?" Her tone was nothing if not… distasteful.

But… but he hadn't even said anything yesterday… "How'd you…?"

"Oh, what, and goddesses aren't allowed to be omniscient anymore?" She whirled on Sasori when he sniggered. "_What?_ I'm _plenty_ all-knowing!" Sasori nodded placatingly, but Eris was still silently fuming.

"Um, anyway, I just found this, thought it might be yours." Deidara offered up the container on the end of his outstretched arm. Gods, it was heavier than he remembered.Sasori's eyes gleamed momentarily in the dim light before he snatched it up and held it near his eye for examination with both hands. "I wondered where this had got to," he murmured, half grinning.

"Oh, so what's it for, then?" He was really just glad that he hadn't eaten any.

Sasori had a certain air of having just been rudely interrupted when he glanced at him derisively.

"Organs."

"Oh, like pianos and stuff, yeah?" he grumbled, rubbing his eye again.

"Yes, Deidara," Eris quipped, leaning forward, "I'm sure. Hadn't you heard? Sasori doesn't need to disembowel people anymore, and has decided to take up an exciting career in repairing ghastly malformed pianos."

Suddenly he was blinking at the closed door.

It wasn't the muted speech he could hear on the other side that bothered him - it was the sudden cessation of said speech.

"Deidawa, I'm hungry," Isuki yawned, latching onto his hand and distracting his attention – which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

And… she didn't pull her tiny palm away from his.

"…Not my problem," he insisted, trying to wake up enough to be righteously annoyed.

"But, my stomach, hurts!"

He scowled and ripped his hand up toward his side, out of her fragile grasp. Before he had a chance to blink again, this time in surprise at himself, she had started to cry – little, sad tears accompanied by little, pathetic gasps.

The child wandered out of the hall slowly and looked around, sobbing all the while. "Mommy? Daddy?"

"Isuki," he ventured, "I'm… sorry." That tasted so strange in his mouth.

"Mommy?" Her tone was about to cross the line into panic, growing higher in pitch.

"Isuki, Mommy isn't here right now."

"Daddy? Mommy?"

Deidara spent the better part of that morning trying to convince Isuki that Michiko and Itachi weren't there, but would be back – hopefully – very soon. Hopefully very, _very _soon. Hells, maybe even soon enough that _they_ could try to tell the stubborn brat they would be back soon.

Alas, that was a vain hope.

If he had to give the child credit for anything, it would be the energy. It must a have been some sort of pure, unrefined life source that fed her, because once she started playing she seemed to magically forget she had ever complained of hunger.

Oh, it had started simply enough. She had started to pull him in one direction by the end of his sleeve when she gurgled in shock as his hand disappeared into it. This had been closely followed by a frightened stare and profuse apologies over his missing hand. His only entertainment had been seeing the expression on her face when he pulled his sleeve up and the MIA hand popped back out like claw, grinning.

Of course, this led to fastidiously curious exploration of his sleeves, which led in turn to him being pulled around by aforementioned sleeves for hours. And she _ran_. Gods, how she ran. At this point he wanted nothing but to _sleep_ – so uncharacteristically tired – which was in _no way_ accomplished by rapid, irritatingly jerky movement. Apparently there was some sort of destination she had in mind, and he was supposed to keep her from dragging him there. After being thwarted multiple times, though, she was content with making his hand disappear for a while. About the fifth time she was peering up his sleeve his fingers burrowed into the reddish-black hair framing her face, and his palm fit rather nicely on the curve of her forehead. She had giggled and rolled her shoulders when it licked her. Her small fingers wrapped around his pinky and thumb and pulled his hand down, and she licked it back.

_Gods._

Nothing had ever felt so _wrong_.

Worse, it had felt _good_. He had _liked_ it. For just half a second before he'd recoiled and shuddered her tongue on his had felt like Michiko, but not. After having his hand stared at in profound confusion more a few more moments he offered her the end of his sleeve like a dog brings the leash to its master.

Beyond that point he was no longer playing, but merely being played with. He was no longer an active participant in the pursuit of "fun" and "entertainment". After not too long it was just plain annoying.

She insisted they had to finish before he could go, but she wouldn't let him give up. And – and, when he withdrew his other arm and "let" her accidentally pull the entire sweater off over his head, she proclaimed him a cheater and kicked him in the shin.

After sleep-deprivation, exhaustion, and dim light that strained his eyes, and now a twice-battered shin, Deidara was done.

"I'm going to sleep now." It seemed appropriate to mutter dully after scaring the child half to death muttering vehemently about how her spine was coming out through her nose the second feeling returned to his leg.

It didn't even make sense! She hadn't kicked him that hard, but the bruise was already greenish-yellow. And his skin was dry, and patches were flaking off. He had gotten _real sleep _for the first time in days; why was he so tired? Grumbling and rubbing the bridge of his nose before moving his fist to his eye, he found his room, unaware of the soft padding of bare feet behind him.

The mattress sunk under his knee before he flopped onto it with resignation and rolled over, sprawled slightly.

"Deidawa?"

Dear gods, what now?

"Can I, sleep in here, tonight?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Sleep in your room, yeah."

"Why?"

"Because it's yours."

"Why?"

"I don't know! Go away!"

Just a sniffle. "Pwease?"

"No."

"But I'm scared."

"Why, yeah?"

"Because my, room is scary."

"…Fine." He didn't have the energy to argue with the stubborn, mulish, bolshie child.

A slight creak of crappy mattress springs, but he didn't roll over to check on her. He did, however, get the idea to stuff his pillow between them, just in case she got any ideas about cuddling, or snuggling, or any other cutesy act that would result in his losing body heat.

"…Deidawa?"

"_Wha-_ha-ha-ha-hat?" he whined, begging any merciful god who happened to be listening to just kill him then and there.

"I'm hungry. And," she added before he could groan out an appropriate response, "I don't know, how."

"Then I guess you'll just starve until Mommy and Daddy get back, yeah." Damn them. Damn them both. Oh, yes, he was going to have a nice little _rant_ with Mommy and Daddy when they got back. …Well, maybe with Mommy; best to avoid Daddy like the plague.

"..Deidawa?"

"Please, just take me now," he sobbed quietly. "_What?_"

"I'm cold."

"Not my problem." He was deeply satisfied with the lack of response.

Then the chittering of the teeth started. Followed by the rustling of the fabric as she squirmed restlessly. Followed by the pillow being shoved repeatedly against his back as she rammed into it in her quest for warmth.

Groaning, he rolled over, snatched his pillow back under his head, hooked an arm around her stomach and pulled the little monstrosity up to his chest.

"Happy now? Good."

And he fell asleep without waiting for so much as a "thank you".

* * *

It was darker when he woke up than when he had fallen asleep. He was also colder than usual, especially his right fingers.

He moved to rub his eye with his fist so he could get a better look-see, but he couldn't move his hand. Well, he could move it; it just didn't get any closer. Oh: Isuki's head rested on his stomach, and her small arms were cuddling his arm.

And she was sucking his wrist.

He could barely curl his leg to push her away with his foot, and even when he managed that she merely slipped over the edge of the mattress, dragging him along with her by the wrist. He utterly failed to jerk his arm back, forced to be satisfied pulling it closer to him slowly until the child popped off and fell back on the floor.

His arm was shaking. He clamped a hand over his wrist before he was forced to look at the bloody gaping mess he knew would be there: he had seen Itachi after the first time Michiko fed off him. And the second time, too, come to think of it.

Itachi had _scars_ from that.

"Deidawa," Isuki yawned, "I'm hungry."

He simply snorted, withdrawing under the blankets. Gods, his fingers kept slipping off his wrist – all warm and slicked with blood. He rolled over with difficulty, shivered under the heavy blankets. Pain spiked his head when Isuki dragged the blankets back a little.

"Deidawa, what's wong?" He managed to turn his head back and glare at her.

"You look, sick," she informed him with concern.

"No shit," he grumbled, snorting again and turning away. He heard her footsteps retreat and sighed. One less thing to panic about. Sans the blood, life was peaceful for just a few minutes. Less movement, lower pulse; lower pulse, less blood. Everything made sense.

Until, that is, the demon spawn returned.

"Deidawa, Sasori won't, come." He groaned and seized the blankets when Isuki tugged on them urgently. "You will, go see him?"

"No," he grumbled, finding his way out from under the covers only to fail glaring at her. "Just need food, sleep, be fine…"

"I, can get, food."

"No. Feed, myself, food, just fine."

"…You're eye is, funny."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Don't you, play, or something…?" he suggested, gathering the blankets around him like a cocoon. And through sheer momentum he ended up standing. Albeit a bit wobbly and pained, but still standing.

Gods, it was cold. And dark. Why the hells was it so damned dark? He could hardly see 10 feet in front of him. What was that about? Was it three in the morning or something? He was certainly tired enough to believe that. He hugged the blankets securely, trying to garner all the warmth possible from the thick folds as he walked. Slowly.

Deidara was almost to the main hall when his legs told him that the floor was starting to look _really_ comfortable.

He didn't have much of an appetite, but he was starving. He wasn't sleep-deprived, but he was completely worn out. Life had stopped making sense, and now his mind was siding with his legs and ganging up on him.

_**Sleep**_**, **it was saying_. __**Sleep, you bastard. We need sleep!**_

How could he refuse?

* * *

He was awakened viciously when light burned his eyes through closed eyelids.

More pain told him that blinking only made it worse, allowing brief flashes of light to pierce his skull right behind the eyes and go out the other side. Best to just keep them closed and wait for it to pass. No, even better, _make_ it pass.

"_Gods_, that's bright!" he hissed, hiding his vision behind one arm.

The lights disappeared.

"Why is it so dark, yeah?"

The lights turned back on.

"Dammit! The hells' wrong with you?"

"Fuck, would you just make up your mind?" Oh. Hidan. How wonderful. "Seriously, what kind of shit is this? Did you pass out or something?" The light went away.

"No," he grumbled, peeling his arm away from his face gingerly and glancing around. It did him no good; it was almost pitch black. "I did not…" he held his head briefly. "_Pass out_."

"Oh, what, you just fell asleep in the middle of the fucking floor?"

"Yeah."

"Where people walk? Yeah, right; you totally fainted, you baby."

"No." Deidara had just begun to sit up tentatively and actively wonder why he couldn't really see all that clearly anymore.

The lights flicked on.

"Aaaargh!"

The light went away.

"Stop it, yeah. Gods, that hurts like –"

The lights came back.

"Gah! Would you – Ah! – Dammit, Hidan, I swear I'll – Mmgn! – I'm going to kill – Ack!"

He could feel his eyes starting to water.

"Ha: _baby_."

Deidara almost responded to this unfair accusation when Hidan took the liberty of restarting another topic entirely before he could finish the second "s" in "Piss off."

"Whoaly _shit!_ That's _seriously_ not right. You're crying –"

"_No, _I am _not_," he spat, rubbing his eye tenderly.

"No, you didn't fucking let me finish." Hidan sounded almost excited as his voice retreated, along with fast footfalls.

"Hey, guys, come see this! Deidara's crying pus!"

* * *

Apparently he had pas— fallen asleep again, because without that first part of the sequence it might be considered rather difficult to wake up. Magically in his own bed again. How lovely. He could almost fall asleep…

"Deidawa!"

_Dammit…_

"You, woke up!"

"'Course," he grumbled, rolling over to examine the blood-letting demon child critically. "Just sleep, yeah…"

He could see. It wasn't too dark, and it wasn't blindingly bright. He could actually _see_ the child. His vision moved to dart around the rest of the room and revel in the return of normal lighting when they stopped briefly on something that made his heart rate spike dramatically:

Sasori.

It would have been perfectly fine if he had had the decency to look pissed off for being torn away from Eris, or maybe even wear a smirk brimming with subdued evil intent, but he look _bored_. Bad things happened when Sasori was bored. Bad things happened because either, a.) He was going to find something entertaining to do to someone or b.) He had gone through homicidal rage and passed out the other side and someone was going find themselves very dead very soon. Plus, he appeared to be holding something in his pocket, and that meant he didn't want it to be seen, and if a violent criminal who lives with other violent criminals doesn't want those other violent criminals to see something, it _has _to be bad.

"Sleep," Deidara reiterated, risking another wary glance at Sasori before turning his attention back to the smiling child. "'D be _fine_ if… if you hadn't, hadn't _drained _me…" He had to lie down again, put his head back. "Little monster, yeah."

"That's not, fair! You said, I had to find, out how to eat."

Had he? Hm, he only vaguely remembered anything of the sort. He didn't put that much concentration into remembering that much, though, because watching Sasori fidget apathetically was taking most of his conscious effort. It worried him. Sasori must have noticed, because he grinned.

But his eyes weren't smiling.

"Isuki, dear child, would you please leave for a moment?" Sasori inquired courteously. "It won't be long. Why don't you go find a rabbit?"

Isuki glanced at Deidara again, and he found himself willing her to stay and not leave him alone with a psychopathic killer, despite how much he had longed for her disappearance earlier. The child did not pick up the silent screams for mercy, however, and flashed him a bright smile and a kiss on the cheek before darting away and shutting the door behind her.

Just _perfect_. Now he had no witness.

"You're going to die."

"Need sleep," he argued quietly, rolling to face the wall. "Regenerate blood."

"That's not going to help. Actually, scratch that; it will help, just not enough. You need more than sleep."

"Need blood," Deidara grumbled.

"Yes, but not just blood, because blood won't help your vitamin deficiencies."

His eyebrows lowered in confusion. "What?" he demanded, turning back to Sasori and finding the puppet master looming next the bed, making him feel all short and sickly. "Was just blood, she took."

This elicited the smirk, but now it was almost as unwelcome as the boredom had been. "Of course, Deidara. But where are the majority of vitamins held?"

"…Blood?"

"Good dog. And, to forestall your next question: no, this did not happen to Itachi."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Michiko must have done something different. Maybe she knew what she was doing, maybe she didn't take this much… Point is, it's happened to _you_, and _you_ need a shot."

"No. Just sleep."

"Didn't we just go over this?"

"Don't need shot, sleep." Deidara was partially aware that he had begun to hyperventilate. "How do we know, deficiency, anyway?" he dismissed amid nervous laughter.

"Deidara, I know. I've _given _people vitamin deficiencies, and you have a few."

"Oh? Sure?"

"Well given the fact that you," Sasori paused and took a deep breath, "have lost your night vision, have increased sensitivity to bright light, are crying pus, have scaly and dry skin, patches of skin flaking off, reddened lips that are cracking at the corners, a swollen tongue, difficulty walking, bruised, irritable, sore, and weak, I'd say it's a pretty good shot you have multiple vitamin deficiencies. Oh, wait a second." He ripped the blankets back. "And skin lesions. Yes, I know they look like sunburns."

"…Sleep."

"I suppose, if you wanted to be sure…"

Deidara shot him another wary glance out of the corner of his eye.

"We could just wait until you go blind."

"_What?_"

"Oh, yes, didn't I mention that? If you don't get better soon your eye muscles will become paralyzed, your eyes will swell, your eyelids will be sealed shut, and they will fill with pus? As you can probably imagine, they're much more likely to become infected that way… So, the shot now?"

Deidara watched as Sasori pulled his hand out of his pocket and betrayed a long, long needle. He shrank back against the wall.

"…You're scared of needles, aren't you?" Sasori asked with a smirk, squeezing a droplet of something out the tip until it beaded and fell to its doom, like a fatted calf to the slaughter.

"N-no, yeah."

"There's really nothing to be worried about, Deidara. Here, just think of it like this: I am going to count to five, then stab you with a large, sharp metal object."

He laughed weakly.

"One."

Deidara hesitated, wondering if he was serious.

"Two."

He swallowed, wincing at the pain in his throat.

"Three."

He weighed the pros and cons of going blind.

"Four."

_Stab._

"_Bastard!_" Deidara screamed, clutching his burning thigh as his vision started to disappear again. "You didn't count to five!"

"I rounded up."

* * *

Deidara woke up when he hit the floor drowning in blanket.

And it felt good. It _felt_. He was breathing normally, and everything just felt… normal.

Normalcy had never felt so good. Being balanced had never been something he was very good at.

He felt like… he wanted to get back in bed. The new element was that he now had the energy and will to clamber up the side of the bed and flop down in semi-exhaustion, tugging the blankets up behind him. He was loathe to even think the word "snuggle" but digging back under the covers required such actions.

"Hey."

Funny: he could have sworn he just heard Michiko. Did that mean he had another one of damned deficiency thingies? Perhaps the one Sasori had said he was lucky _not_ to have?

_"Yes, it brings dementia in a variety of fun flavors, like general nervousness, confusion, apathy, and the ever-popular delirium. And, since it's mostly seen in drug addicts and severe alcoholics, guess what everyone will think _you've_ been doing in your spare time."_

So, it was delirium then, eh? Auditory hallucinations? That couldn't be good: Sasori had run out of that stuff he'd found.

_"I thought you said it was for organs, yeah?"_

_"I lied. Eris just wanted to use the piano joke."_

Deidara rolled over and started to sleep, but something shoved his shoulder.

"I was talking to you."

"Whu…?" he muttered, feigning sleep in hopes that he would be left alone to recuperate. Then he realized it _was_ Michiko, come to save him from this hell. He reached out and hugged her neck before he actually registered what he was doing. "Thank gods! I know!" he almost sobbed, pulling her closer. "I know why you escaped!"

Michiko deigned to be hugged for a few moments before wresting his arms off her neck. "Was it really all that bad?"

"Um, no," he lied, sweeping back the covers and half leaping out of bed, all so he could not look like a sickly germ and enfold one of her hands in both of his. "She was wonderful, a perfect darling."

Michiko snorted and pulled her hand back, crossing her arms. "Really? Then I cannot _fathom_ why she's such a terrible little hell-child when I'm here." Her eyes flicked derisively over where she couldn't see him.

"Oh. Well, in that case, yes, it was the most horrifying experience of my life, yeah. I envy you for not having broken years ago. …Do you feel, erm, refreshed, after your… vacation?"

"Yes," Michiko answered with quiet satisfaction. "I'm tired as hells."

"Ah."

"This," she continued, hooking one arm around his neck and stretching the other out in front of both of them, where he could see it and she couldn't. "This was sweet."

The little burnt doll rested crisply in the palm of her hand.

"You did good," she whispered in his ear, along with a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks."

"Um, you're welcome…?" he mumbled. _No, don't tell Michiko you almost died because of her demon spawn. That would be bad form. Let her think you can handle a four year old girl, at least._ "Do you want to… get some breakfast or something?"

Her black eyes lit up as she beamed at him with a pointed smile.

"Absolutely. I'm _starving_."


	3. The Kitty Thing Creature

_Right. Isuki's five, now, as you'll soon figure out. Enjoy!_

* * *

"Um, Itachi…" Michiko mumbled unobtrusively, glancing at the floor and then back up again when he turned around. "Have you noticed that Isuki isn't around…?"

"Of course," he replied indignantly. "She wanted to go outside and play in the puddles, so I let her out."

"_What?_ You let a five year old outside and didn't stay out to _watch her?_"

"You're one to talk, Miss 20/20," he sneered in return. "In the rain, too? If the child wants to catch her death of cold, I, as a tender, loving parent, would not wish to keep her from her deepest desire. However, I, as a cold, heartless _criminal_, have no obligation to get soaked to the bone 'watching' her."

"…That was impressive," she conceded, ducking her head. Then she flew back into panic mode borne on wings of pure terror. "But where is she now? When did you let her out? …It sounds like we're talking about some sort of dog…" she added in a mutinous mutter.

"How should I know? I let her out hours ago."

"_What?_"

She could smell Itachi reel back at the sheer magnitude and pitch of her screech, and others seemed to have noticed it as well.

"Ah, Michiko, what are you screaming about, yeah?" Deidara asked, sounding disoriented and rubbing his ear as he stumbled into the main hall.

"Isuki's gone," she blurted, almost tripping over a chair as she darted over to him and latched onto his shoulders, looking at the floor. "I haven't seen her all afternoon."

He seemed to suddenly snap into an attitude more serious, like a rubber band snapping back into shape and flying off to discreetly hit someone across the room in the back of the head. "What? How -?"

"The Amazing Blunder let her out in the rain," she explained, cutting him short and flapping her hands wildly.

"I'm standing right here, you know," Itachi cut in incredulously.

"What? Didn't something like this happen last week, yeah?"

"I'm still right here, just in case you were wondering."

"What's everyone _yelling_ about?" Eris demanded loudly, floating through a wall with Sasori at her heels. Not literally, though, because he couldn't cut through solid objects, but he came down one of the myriad hallways branching off the main hall.

"Isuki's wandered off and we have to go find her!" she spouted, maddened by panic. "We have to find her!"

Michiko got the feeling Eris was giving her a Look and floating closer to the ceiling as if she could stay beyond her reach. "In this rain? Are you mad?"

"I will be if we don't find her," Michiko growled, turning hopelessly from the aloof goddess and pleading with the first person she bumped into. "Sasori, you can't even feel the rain, please? You can help; I can't feel it either _please?_"

"You've got to be joking."

She turned to Deidara and was about to beg, _beg_ him to help her, when the front door creaked open ominously.

It's traditional. In situations like this there always has to be a door creaking, even if the door is made of glass, or beads, or the raw skin flap of a tent. And someone dutifully has to call out, "Oh, I wonder who it could be at this ungodly hour?"

But these were hardened criminals; they didn't follow rules, even ones they had no knowledge of. Instead they turned and stared - or in Itachi's case squinted pointlessly - at the opening into the wind-torn void beyond the walls.

And Isuki tottered in, smiling brightly. She quietly trotted over to Michiko in the silence of the room, and when Michiko picked her up it was like a spell had been broken. Eris zipped off muttering darkly, shooting into a wall, Sasori following cautiously. Deidara hung around for a few moments longer, lingering on the edge of the scene, but left in the end.

Michiko was cradling Isuki in her arms, completely oblivious to the fact that she was soaked and dripping on the floor. "Sweetey, are you okay? Where did you go?" she cooed. "I was worried sick about you."

"I found, something," she explained in her young, broken dialect. Then she started to wriggle, and Michiko was forced to set her down before she dropped her. She rushed off out the door again, and Michiko had to fight the urge to drag her back inside when the little power ball half-dragged, half-carried something in out of the rain.

Michiko expected it to be shown to her, but Isuki moved off in the other direction and Itachi seemed just as surprised as her when she stopped in front of him.

"Daddy, look what I found!" she squeaked proudly, trying to hoist it up a little higher.

"Oh, that's nice," he assured her, reaching down and running a hand over its soggy, furry head. He kept going down its back and stopped at its shoulders, fingering the small lumps that seemed draped in wet weeds of some sort. "…What is it?" he asked hopelessly, giving up trying to figure out what it was.

"A kitty!"

"Oh," he replied, sounding disheartened and skeptical. He probably remembered as well as she did what had happened the last time Isuki had dragged something in out of the rain…

"Um, Isuki, why don't you take it to your room and dry it off. The poor thing seems drowned."

"Okay, Daddy!"

Once she was gone Michiko turned to Itachi with that heavy, I-know-what's-

going-to-happen-but-I-don't-want-to-have-to-do-it feeling. They stood there in silence for a while, until Itachi spoke up.

"It's your turn. I told her last time."

Michiko sighed. Resigned to her fate, she trudged over to Isuki's room and opened the door. "Hi, Isuki? We need to talk about your… friend." She shut the door quietly behind her.

"Okay, Mommy!" she squealed, looking up from the wet fluff ball at her feet.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled her into her lap. "Well, Sweetey, you know you can't have everything you want, right?"

* * *

Itachi looked up when Michiko came walking purposefully past and into one of the other halls.

"Where are you going?" he asked curiously.

"To get a box from storage. …Well, the poor thing can't sleep on the cold floor all night!" she added after his inquisitive silence.

"Michiko, we can't keep it. _She_ can't keep it. Sir Leader won't like it."

"I won't like what?"

Itachi just barely avoided jumping at the sound of the voice right behind him. "Won't like the cat Isuki brought in out of the rain, Sir."

"A cat?" he asked skeptically. "Hm… I like cats," he added suddenly, but casually, like he didn't really care. "Cold and stealthy, silent killers of the night… If no one else is mortified by its presence, it can stay." And he was gone.

And then Itachi heard voices, like Leader's departure had signaled to the others to come now or something. What was it that attracted them all to others' problems like moths to a flame?

"What's this about a cat?" Kakuzu asked shrewdly as he trudged heavily into the room. "We can't afford to keep one."

"Yes we can," Michiko countered.

"No, we'll have to feed it, and care for it, and _no_," he insisted.

"But we can take care of it fine without any money! We can catch it food, and it won't cost you a cent."

"…Fine," he huffed stalking off. One down… who knew how many were left to go.

"What? How can you say 'fine'? Last time she brought something home it nearly gnawed my finger off. I will not tolerate having something else here."

"Well, if you had been more observant, Sasori, you would have noticed something was gnawing your finger off. Just pay more attention. And besides, that was a dog, not a cat."

"No. Cat's _claw_ on things. I -"

He stopped when Isuki came in, carrying her cat.

"What the hells is _that_, yeah?"

"It's a cat," Itachi stated simply, like he was stupid. And he was, so he didn't have to exaggerate his tone.

"Oh, pardon _me_," Deidara snapped sarcastically. "I guess I'm the only one who's never seen a cat with _wings_ before, yeah."

Itachi hated that he had to take his word for that. Although, that would explain those strange weed-coated nubs… soppy feathers? Gods, why did she have to bring back the weirdest things?

Isuki trotted over to him and tugged on his pant leg. "Daddy, I, I wanna name my kitty. I have a name for him."

"Really?" he asked wearily. "What is it?"

"I wanna for name him, Sasori."

Itachi paused, holding back a chuckle so as not to disturb the silence that had cascaded down on the room. "And why would you want to name him that, Isuki?"

She twirled around playfully, heaving the limp cat-thing… creature up further in her arms. And she stopped suddenly, like she had remembered what she was going to say, stumbling over her words. "Because, for I wanna name, my pets after people I like."

And the silence continued, and everyone was looking expectantly at Sasori… the puppet one. You could tell he was getting bent out of shape by the way his expression visibly wavered.

He stalked off, but instead of following the passage back to his room he headed for one of the more obscure hallways.

"Where are _you_ going, yeah?"

He paused, turned around. "…I'm going down to storage to get a box."

* * *

Itachi woke up to a high-pitched mewling.

"Michiko," he groaned, rolling over and stuffing his head under the pillow. "What time is it?"

"Ugh… two thirty."

"Oh, at least it's doing better; it hasn't screeched for a whole fifteen minutes."

Michiko muttered something and made the mattress jump when she beat her pillow.

"Michiko, go into your daughter's room and shut the thing up."

"She's just as much your daughter as she is mine."

"Not at two thirty in the morning she isn't."

"…_Fine_," she grouched, and he felt her slide out of bed and heard the door shut behind her.

Sighing, he tried to ignore the brief cries, then noticed they stopped suddenly. Then he heard another longer whine before it trailed off, like it was getting farther away. He propped himself up on his elbows when she came back.

"Well?"

"It ran away," she explained brusquely, flopping into bed.

"Really? How could it run away when it was in a box?"

"It has wings, remember. And it ran pretty fast when I threw it out the window."

Michiko woke up with a groan when something landed on her stomach.

"Mommy, Mommy!" Isuki cried. "Sasori's gone!"

"He probably just has a mission or something," she muttered before rolling over.

"No, Mommy, he doesn't have one!"

"Have you looked in his room?"

"No, silly! He was sleeping in my box, remember?"

Michiko paused. _What…?_ And then she remembered. "Yes, I remember,"  
she mumbled as she sat up in bed. "I was just testing you."

"Oh, okay!" Isuki chirped. "So does that, mean, you know where he is?"

She blinked: "Yes, dear, Itachi and I got tired of listening to it whine, so I threw it out the window and it ran away," didn't seem like it would cut it. "Well…" she conjectured, staring off into space as if inspiration would magically appear from its blackness. "He probably just ran away, Sweetey. It's not your fault."

"But, he can't run away!" she insisted. "My window, was closed!"

_Crap._ How was she going to explain that? "He could have gone to another room and gone out through another window…"

"But Kakuzu won't, let anyone leave windows open!"

It seemed the constant noise was beginning to wake Itachi up, albeit it had taken a while for him to reach a point which allowed him to think straight and form coherent sentences. "Wha…?" he mumbled, trying to sit up.

_Double crap_. "…Then he must still be here?" she suggested half-heartedly.

"But, Michiko, I thought you-"

She bristled and hit him, effectually cutting him off. "Have no idea where he could be!" she substituted.

"What was that for?"

"Sasori has run away, and we need to go find him," she told him briskly, slapping his arm. "Get up, you oaf."

"What? ..._Oh_, right."

"Isuki, why don't you get started looking and we'll catch up."

"Okay, Mommy!"

When her child's retreating back disappeared through the door, she turned on Itachi. "What do you think you're doing, you idiot? Were actually going to tell her I threw her cat out the window?! What are you trying to do?"

"I'm sorry, Michiko," he muttered. "I wasn't really awake yet."

"How could you not have been awake? You weren't asleep, were you? Huh?"

"Yes, but there is a difference between ceasing to be asleep and waking up."

"…Fine, whatever. We're going to go look for the cat now. Okay? And you will not complain. Okay?"

"…Okay…"

It appeared the calling out thing was waking up the other members.

"Sasori!"

"Michiko, what are you doing, yeah?"

"Looking for Sasori."

"Isn't he usually with Eris?"

"No, no; the cat," she corrected, making a gesture with her hands to indicate something small. "Remember?"

"Well, yeah… Did it run away?"

Michiko smelled around to make sure Isuki wasn't in the room and pulled him close, whispering conspiratorially. "Actually, I threw it out her window last night, but I don't want her to find out. Will you pretend to help look for it?"

"Sure, why not? It's not like I have anything _better_ to do -"

"Good!" she exclaimed brightly, completely undermining his sarcasm. "Go see if everyone else is awake, and if they aren't, wake them up and explain to them."

"But I -"

"No buts! Just go!"

"Fine," he spat, stalking off.

_Geez, what's eating _him? she wondered, staring after him for a bit.

'He probably didn't get any sleep,' Jurag drawled, 'what with Sasori whining through the night.'

Michiko nodded to herself before setting off in the opposite direction, calling throughout the halls.

"Sasoooori! _Sasori!_"

She heard a door further down the hall slam open. "_What?!_"

"No, not _you_: the cat."

"…What? Isuki's little monstrosity?"

"The one you fetched a box for…?" Michiko prodded.

"What's wrong with it?"

"It seems to have developed a nasty case of 'missing'."

"Oh."

Michiko yelled when he turned to go back into his room. "Don't you want to help look for it?"

"Do I have a choice? …I thought not."

She nodded, satisfied, and turned to continue the nonexistent search. Then she remembered something. "Sasori?" He ignored her. "Sasori? _Sasori!_"

She glared at him when he turned around. "What?"

"Why didn't you answer me?"

"I figured you weren't talking to _me_."

"Well, cut it out!"

"What? I didn't _do_ anything!"

"…Whatever. I just forgot to tell you Sasori isn't really missing."

"Then why are we looking for it?"

"Because we want Isuki to think it ran away."

"Why do 'we' want her to think that?"

"Because we don't want her to find out I threw it out a window when it wouldn't shut up."

"…Nice."

* * *

Michiko peered under the couch while Itachi lifted it up, getting her nose level with the floor. "Sasori?"

"What?"

"The cat," she and Itachi replied.

Michiko grinned on the inside when she heard Sasori's distant grumbling, but she frowned into the dust bunnies on the floor. "I knew you shouldn't have let her name it Sasori."

"I knew you shouldn't have let her keep it."

"Ah, touché."

"Tooshay what, Mommy?"

Michiko almost hit her head on the underside of the couch. "Nothing, Sweetey."

"…Did you, find Sasori?"

She forced a depressed sigh. "No, Isuki, we didn't; no one did. I think he just ran away."

She heard her heart crack a little when the child started to cry. "W-why did he run away?" she asked pitifully, throwing herself into Michiko's lap. She glanced up at Itachi, who just shrugged back at her.

'Improvise,' he suggested.

'Gee, thanks for the advice,' she snapped back, hugging Isuki to her. "Well, Sweetey, he probably just wasn't used to being inside. He probably got scared and that's why he ran away."

'Ooh, how creative.'

'I don't see _you_ doing anything to help.'

"…I scared him, didn't I?" Isuki hiccupped through her tears. "I, scared him away."

"No, Sweetey, it wasn't your fault."

"Yes it is. Sasori's all cold, and alone, because of me. I loved him, too hard, didn't I? He didn't, love me back, and I, ruined it."


	4. Relatives

_Ha, I just realized I didn't put in POV breaks, so this should make everything much less confusing. ;D Anyway... This was randomly inspired and I needed to add it, even though it's earlier chronologically, which makes everything very confusing. So. Yeah._

_Life._

* * *

Relatives

"Daddy!"

Itachi glanced up.

"Look what I found!" Isuki darted into the room trailing a very, very long rope. It was so long, in fact, that even when the poor thing was standing in front of him, all out of breath, there was still more rope leading out of the room.

"What's this?" He chuckled slightly. "You usually have more interesting things to show me than a length of rope."

"Daddy," she whined imperiously, "it's on the other _end_ of the rope!"

"I see."

"…Well, come look at it!"

"Okay, okay, I'm coming. Why didn't you just carry it in? Like everything else you bring home?"

Her response was a mere mumble. "'Cuz it's sorta scary."

"_Scary?_" His voice held a little more scorn than he'd intended, and his newfound shadow almost bumped into him when he stopped mid-stride. "If you were so _scared_, why did you even bring it back at all?"

"'Cuz I wanted you to see it!" As if that explained everything.

_Five year old logic_, he scoffed mentally. _It's a contradiction in terms._ Then he amended his thought. Six_ year old logic, today._

"Did you even _try_ to subdue it this time?"

"I tried, I tried! I used the Sharingan on it! But it didn't work! I think it's 'cuz it has something like that, too, 'cuz when I petted it it's eyes turned all red and my arm got this weird achy burny sort of feeling."

Itachi sighed his complacence, content to see the apparently diabolical creature for himself. When he turned to follow the rope out the door, his mind suffered an "Oh gods, why me?" moment, but of course he didn't let it show _because he didn't_ _do that_. He did make a brief double take, however.

It was understandable.

The thing was all teeth and claws, no exaggeration. He couldn't even be sure it had a face: its head was entirely made up of long fangs. Very _sharp_ fangs. Did it even have eyes…? Oh, there they were, hiding as little slits at the base of what might have passed for a neck if the head hadn't appeared to be freakishly melded to the body directly. The thing presumably had a spine, which extruded four stubby legs that ended in large clusters of knives… claws.

"Well, it's certainly very… _interesting_," he assured Isuki, ruffling her hair.

And her eyes turned red. At first he assumed it was the Sharingan, but that couldn't have been right. Her eyes were solid, bloody red: pupil, sclera, iris, the whole deal. And they weren't simply _red_, they were _glowing_ red. An eldritch red smoke began rolling off her thickly, like some kind of liquid fire, and a sting of a dull, burning ache spiked up his arm. And all this had happened in the time it took him to blink, and –

And everything went dark.

* * *

Michiko sniffed around when she heard Itachi calling her.

"Michiko?"

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing," he assured her, swooping down out of nowhere and setting his lips against hers. She was content to kiss him back for a while, but soon she found herself simply waiting for him to disengage. When this wait began to stretch out, she wriggled free of his embrace and pushed him back.

"No, really. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he insisted, trying to hug her again. She dodged.

"…What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"What did you break?"

"Nothing."

Michiko paused for a moment, then ventured out on a limb. "Who did you kill?"

"Michiko, I am insulted," he huffed regally, drawing back. "I was simply wondering if you would like to go for a walk."

"…A walk?"

"Yes."

"…With you?"

"Yes. You know, in the woods?"

Michiko had never seen the point in going on walks. You went outside, you walked around, but you always ended up back where you started. Besides, there was something else…

She glanced around to make sure Isuki wasn't anywhere nearby and whispered, "But what about Isuki's surprise party? You remember, the one _today?_ The one _you_ will be at?"

"Party?" he demanded, a little too loud. "I have no time for games. Come with me." His hand clamped onto her forearm like a vice and he began to pull her toward the door.

What was up with him? Could he have actually forgotten that it was Isuki's birthday? Well, she wouldn't put it past him, but something should have jogged his memory by this point.

"No," she hissed, twisting her arm away.

His color contorted briefly, as if the feeling themselves were uncomfortable being there. "…Don't have time for this," she heard him mutter darkly. "Need to…" His head snapped up. "I'm going for a walk."

Michiko half reached out her arm and wanted to go after him, but then she remembered something. There was a celebration that was supposed to be happening, and she was supposed to be the one making it happen.

* * *

"Can't you walk any faster?" Junten snapped.

"Daddy, I'm tired!"

Junten winced whenever the child referred to her as its father.

"Can't we slow down?"

"No."

"…Will you carry me?" it whined pitifully.

"No! Walk faster!"

She gleaned some satisfaction as the child started and disappeared into the trees again. She had no doubt that if she was forced to carry the demon child she would never make it before her body's mate noticed she was missing. This body was so _weak_ compared to her own, original body. It was fast, no doubt, but that was useless when she had to wait for the child anyway.

Curse it all, she needed _strength_ power, not _brain_power! There was no eloquence to her plan! All she needed to do was get to her sanctuary, revive her powers, and –

Ah, there! The rift in the earth, and at the bottom, her sanctuary. Her powers. Her freedom!

Junten picked up the pace a little, excited by the appearance of the gateway to her life. The child appeared out of the trees above her suddenly and landed on her back.

"Daddy, where are we going?"

Junten smirked. "We're already there." A sound caught her attention, and she frowned in concentration.

"Itaaaaaaaaaaachiiiii! …Itachi? Itachi! Dammit, Itachi, where the hells are you?"

Curses! The mate! The mate – no, not the mate. Michiko. Michiko was looking for her. No, not her. Michiko was looking for the body she was using. No, not the body. Itachi. Michiko wasn't looking for the body; she was looking for her mate. Body or no, she wanted him back. She wouldn't want the body with Junten in it.

Junten started. How did she know all this? How did she know what Michiko wanted, what she desired? …What she _needed?_ She quested around for an answer and found one when she found a leak into her mind. No, not her mind. Itachi's mind, which belonged to her now. It was hers, yet it wasn't at the same time.

Argh, this was so confusing! Why were humans so confusing?

She explored the leak and found it reached into the mind of the ma – Michiko. In return, the mind of Michiko pushed back, as if aware of her presence there. She immediately withdrew and locked down the mind of Itachi.

"Itachi? Dammit, I'm going to give you such a punch when I find you…!" she wheezed, rustling bushes nearby.

"Mommy?" The child – no, not the child. Isuki. Isuki took a step closer to the bushes.

"No!" Junten almost panicked, but she took control again. This was what she did, after all, wasn't it? Of course. This was here element. "We're playing hide and seek, Isuki. Go fly down the ravine and hide from Mommy."

Isuki looked suspicious at first, but her expression turned into one of delightful mischief and she jumped up over the ravine, wings popping out as she drifted out of sight.

Once she was clear, Junten reached a hand behind her back and allowed it to search blindly for the katana that was supposed to be there. She found it and drew it out; the blade made a slight ringing sound is it brushed against its sheath. Hefting it experimentally, she rested it behind her leg. It wasn't her spear, but it would have to do.

Michiko manifested from the green façade of the leafy foliage. "There you are…!" she panted heavily, resting her hands on her knees. "Worried…sick… Bastard…!" Then she straightened and glared at her forcefully, even though she was blind. How did she manage that?

"Why did you take Isuki?" she asked, an undertone of pleading sounding odd in her voice. "You _know _it's her birthday."

Birthday? Oh, yes, she remembered those. She had celebrated them once every hundred years or so with Vilein –

She stiffened, went cold. She allowed a small smirk to grace the lips of Itachi. "Well, I needed _one_ of you." Then she then she pulled up the katana and stabbed her.

* * *

Michiko was sorely tempted to scream, but she held it back. After all, it was only pain, right?

She was only pinned to the ground, flat on her back, by a katana. The blade had sunken deep into the loamy soil and consequently the hilt was rammed up right against her chest. And of _course_ it couldn't have had a wide hilt, because _that _would have made it far too easy. If there had been any form of luck smiling on her it would have had a _wide_ hilt so she could have just pushed herself up and dragged the sword out too, with the hilt acting as a solid base. But _no_, it just _had_ to have a _small_ hilt – one that barely even protruded from the blade. Every time she shifted it dug into the sensitive, exposed flesh around her wound. Maybe if she had possessed a higher threshold for pain she might have attempted to pull herself up and jerked the hilt _through_ her, but she wasn't stupid. As long as she didn't move, she wasn't in pain. She had learned that pain was numbed after she had "died". She remembered there was that one time near the Cloud Village when it taken her several minutes to realize someone had stabbed her because she couldn't feel it. In fact, Itachi had pointed it out to her.

And that brought her back to the fact that Itachi had stabbed her, which put her in shock again.

Honestly.

God gods, Itachi had _stabbed_ her. _Itachi _had stabbed her. _Itachi _had _stabbed _her.

Her throat tightened painfully.

She used the time she spent waiting for someone to find her to try figuring out what possible explanation there could be for… _that_. She subtly failed to avoid thinking of such outlandish yet painful options such as: Itachi had finally gone off the deep end, or, worse, he didn't love her anymore.

The interruption to this agonizing process came in the form of someone ripping the katana out of the ground, inadvertently slicing through a little more of her.

"Well, someone seems to have gotten herself in a little bit of trouble," Eris quipped, placing a hand on her wound in a business-like manner. A comfortable heat began to pour out of it.

"…Itachi stabbed me…" she muttered blankly. "Stabbed me…"

"Oh, don't worry your pathetic mortal mind about it. It wasn't Itachi."

This made no sense to Michiko. In her experience, what smelled like Itachi, sounded like Itachi, and acted like Itachi – well, was generally Itachi.

Actually, come to think of it, Itachi hadn't really been acting like himself. Itachi had been acting like someone who had met him only once acting like Itachi.

"…So… what… exactly is that supposed to mean?" She flinched away when Eris stuck two fingers into the hole in her chest and felt around for damage.

"I thought it was rather clear: it wasn't Itachi. Well, it was his body, but it wasn't him."

"…Explain?"

"It was Junten."

"…Explain more."

"Feeling demanding today, aren't we?" Eris quipped, setting her other hand over the wound as well, doubling the warmth, but when Michiko tried to move an unseen hand pushed her back into place. "Stop moving. This will take a while. Where was I?"

"You hadn't even started."

"Hush, you. As I was saying, it was Junten who stabbed you. Itachi was just the vessel she chose."

"...Vessel? Who is this 'Junten' of which you speak?"

"Stop interrupting me and maybe you'll learn something. Unfortunately, I know Junten very well. She was the one who first suggested I be banished here."

"You keep mentioning that, but I still don't know why. I mean, did it build up over time, or what?"

"I thought I told you to stop interrupting me, you little twit. I'll be nice and chalk it up to ichor-loss making you delusional. If you really must know, I turned Vilein, the God of Vengeance, into a marmot."

"What? Why?"

"Because. He… _touched_ me."

"Doesn't Sasori do that all the time?"

"That's different! I let _him!_"

"…So you didn't want him to?"

"…What?"

"Didn't want him to touch you?"

"Of course I didn't! I was only, crap, what, 800,000 years old? What _right_ did he have? Oh, what, so he was like, 5 _million? Bastard!_ He was lucky I only turned him into a _marmot!_"

Michiko felt a burst of pain as Eris' loose fuming colored the energy flowing into her a wrathful shade of agony. Barely withstanding the sting, she tried to soothe the anger that was pulsing directly into her from the goddess' hands to the remaining breach in her skin.

"Terrible… How… _awful_…" she ground between her teeth, resisting the temptation to writhe on the ground like a slug under a rain of salt.

"…Yes," Eris muttered decisively. "Yes it was."

"…So what does a marmot have to do with you being exiled?"

"Banished. And Vilein was Junten's _partner_. She simply carried on everything he stood for and sentenced me to a life among mortals, just to get her revenge. Said I was a danger to those who should be above harm. Anyway, the point is I killed her a long time ago, and now she's back."

"…You can kill gods?" The relief in her voice was from the renewed sensation of warmth and closure, but Eris must have thought it was due to the idea that immortals weren't really so immortal after all.

"_No_. I killed her body, you see, but her essence can't be destroyed. She's just been lying low without a body for a couple… hundred thousand years or so. Of course, she works her way up, but it takes her a couple hundred years to reach the top of the food chain. She can make the bodies last as long as she needs, even way part their expiration dates. Until 300 years ago I just killed her again every time she showed up in a human, but I can't now that I'm stuck to the forest here."

"…And all this over a marmot?"

"It's so stupid," Eris muttered, making Michiko wince when she put a little extra pressure on her slowly sealing wound. "It was all his fault anyway. And it didn't even last! He just transferred bodies after a hundred years or so! …Well, there _is_ the fact that a clean-sweeping ritualist happened to stumble across him as a "demonic cat" and destroyed him, essence and all… The Vengeance legacy cycled through and all, but it wasn't the same…"

"…Um, I don't mean to interrupt your introspective moment, but what does that have to do with the grand scheme of things?"

"I'm getting to that! We'd already be done by now if _some_one hadn't kept on asking _questions!_ So _anyway_, Junten's trying to get revenge on me, but she can't do that unless she finds a way to get her old body back, or at least something like it. And _that_, my friend, is where Itachi comes into play."

"So her old body was like Itachi's? That's pretty weird."

"No, that's not what I meant. Junten, as The Hunter, generally stuck to a human form, so she needs a grown human body to access her original powers. Original body, original powers. Does this make sense?"

"…Ye-es…"

"Good. She needs her old Spear, too, but that should be a little problematic for her, since I broke it when I first killed her. So somehow she worked her way up to a dirvis – "

"Dirvis?"

"The spiky thingy Isuki brought back – they're her minions, actually. And she obviously moved from the dirvis to Isuki when the stu – when she petted it, because she can only transfer between two beings in physical contact with each other. What bothers me is how she moved from Isuki to Itachi so quickly. Seriously, it should have taken her a hundred years to be ready to move again…"

"Maybe she can hop more quickly between the same species?"

"…Mm, yes, that's probably it. Quite so. So now that she's taken Itachi's body, she's going to sacrifice Isuki, get her powers back, and most likely kill me just like I killed her."

"Well, sounds like we're screwed. …Wait, did you just say _sacrifice?_"

"…Maybe."

"Explain. No, don't explain: let me go so I can go rescue my daughter. …Dammit, _lemme go!_"

"No, that would be pointless. She'd sacrifice you instead."

"Like _hells_ she's going to sacrifice me!"

"Michiko, stop struggling, you'll only make it worse. She's going to sacrifice Isuki because she's a little demon-child, and therefore the top predator in the area. Which is also why she tried using Itachi to entice you away from the base and to her sanctuary."

"…Ah. I see. …So let's go!"

"Michiko, we need a plan. If we don't catch her off guard we'll never take her down. Not unless she hasn't gotten her powers yet, which I highly doubt, thanks to your ceaseless babbling."

"Well, we already have the element of surprise: she thinks I'm dead."

"…That's a good start. But we need something more…"

* * *

Junten screwed her eyes shut and spread out her arms. No, Itachi's eyes, Itachi's arms. Arghnodammit _**hers**__!_ _Her _eyes, _her_ arms! _Hers!_

She spread _her_ arms parallel to the ground, palms down, fingers splayed, and sent out little pulses of essence. It was hard, considering that while she was stuck in this pathetic mortal body she was limited to weak, half-assed search attempts. She walked slowly, placing one foot exactly in front of the other.

Somewhere, somewhere right here, was her Spear. What she didn't understand was why it wasn't telling her itself that it was here. She swept her arms down to her sides and then back up slowly while she pivoted on her heels.

Maybe she just couldn't hear it over the constant comments of the Isuki child.

"Daddy, why are you dancing?" said child chirped.

"_Not dancing_," she snarled quietly. "_Looking._"

"What're you looking for?"

"The end of the rainbow, you worthless little twit!" Junten slammed her foot – Itachi's – _her_ foot, into the overgrown grass growing around the ruins of her sanctuary, involuntarily sending out a larger pulse that left her temporarily drained. "What do you _think?_ Or _do _you think?"

The infernal paternal instincts of remorse automatically generated by her body – yes, _her _body – in response to Isuki's wince and deliberate avoidance of looking at her – _her_ – in a very hurt manner were instantly silenced when Junten heard a faint response to her call.

_help… help... help… _it cried weakly from somewhere amid the ruins that hugged the wall of the ravine.

She dropped all semblance of nonchalance and bolted toward the source, sending out erratic pulses in an attempt to pinpoint it. After several tries with no result she mustered her essence and expelled a pulse that resounded in every fiber of her being, the echoes vibrating softly through her.

_Help! Help!_

Startled, she took a step back and stared at the weedy grass at her feet: it was right below her. Without looking up, she raised a hand and beckoned to the child. "Isuki, come here."

She sat defiantly for a moment, then eased up and approached her warily. "What is it, Daddy?" she inquired, staring blankly at the same patch of grass.

Junten ignored her, straightening one arm and extending one purple-tipped finger straight at the ground. "Dig. Here."

"…What?"

A brief scowl of rage crossed Junten's face. "Dig!" she ordered, louder this time, shoving the girl onto her knees. Isuki merely blinked, sat cross-legged, and poked at the dirt hidden in the grass experimentally with a claw-like fingernail.

Of course she would need to dig faster, but Junten was too busy trembling at the thought of all the power she would have once she had her Spear again too care. It must have been buried deep: the response was too weak too imply anything else. She glanced down with a snarl when Isuki poked her leg.

"Daddy, I can't dig right there. There's something in the way."

"What do you _mean _there's something in the way?" Junten demanded, pushing her back with a foot while she thrust her hand into the grass and felt along the bare dirt. She was just beginning to think the child was lying when her fingers hit something familiarly wooden. Her heartbeat spiked and her hand twitched around the slim but sturdy shaft, pulling it up out of the grass –

And her heartbeat shot up again, but this time it was from shocked distress. It was her spear, to be sure, but it was only a part of her spear. Maybe half. It was bare wood, with no point, but it still spoke to her.

_Saved…! Love you…!_

She simply stared at the stick in her hand, mind spinning slightly. _That's why it's voice was so weak,_ she thought wryly. _It was broken._

A persistent smirk pulled at her lips, and she twisted the broken shaft in her hands until it was maneuvered into a position she could grip solidly. For a moment she wasn't sure what to do. She couldn't hold it like her Spear: she held it like a stick, drooping a little closer to the ground at that realization.

What was she doing? She couldn't surrender. She was the Goddess of The Hunt! She never gave up on her prey. Her prey never had a chance. Once she decided to kill them, they were as good as dead.

Confidence renewed, Junten brought up the stick like a stick and pointed it straight ahead of her, using it to give more direction and magnification to her pulses. She heard the rebounds much earlier this time.

_Here! Here!_

And Eris would suffer, just like she had. Eris, her enemy. No, not just her enemy. Her… _victim._ She would kill Eris, but not quite the same way Eris had killed her. Junten was a straight-up hunter, so the roundabout method she had devised didn't make as much sense as she'd hoped, but she had constantly reassured herself that it would work flawlessly and with much more potency.

There, under some rocks. But they weren't rocks, they were the shattered remains of a statue. Regardless, she shoved them aside and fumbled through the grass until she found another piece of wood. Except this one had that special, pointy bit on the end. The bit no mortal could touch.

She held the two halves of her Spear almost perfectly level in front of her and got a weak feeling in her legs from the sheer excitement when they called to each other.

_Over here! Come here! Together!_

She found she had to turn away when the bright red light enveloped the place where the parts met, even though this body's vision was shot, next to nonexistent. Once it dimmed she ran three fingers appreciatively along it's length, not feeling even a small bump where the shaft had been splintered. No doubt by Eris.

Junten's fingers tightened protectively, possessively around her Spear. Oh, yes, she would have her revenge. For Vilein. For Spear. For herself.

Although it was not in her nature, considering the fact that there is very little humor to be found during a Hunt, Junten felt an overwhelming urge to laugh. It wasn't even an eerily light, casual laugh of evil intent. It surged up from the pit of her stomach and gushed out of her mouth in uncontrolled bursts.

She felt odd, laughing with someone else's voice. Yes, talking as someone else she'd done before, but never laughing. Her new laugh was too deep, too masculine… and too dark. It had a rough quality, as if this throat wasn't very used to being laughed with.

Still laughing, she slammed the butt of her Spear into the ground and looked up at the sky to avoid seeing the blinding circles of red light blasting over the ruins like ripples in a pond. It would have been a much better simile if ripples were known to lift up large crumbled pillars, statues and buildings and put them back together. She kept her face upturned until her cumbersome cloak ceased flapping around her legs.

Isuki was sitting atop the newly restored altar, fidgeting slightly as she tried to find a comfortable place amidst the deep maze of grooves that patterned its granite surface. Ah, yes, the most devout of her followers had dragged the block of stone here from hundreds of miles away. And those desperate to prove their devoutness had carved the grooves that directed running blood off the formerly flat surface.

But now, of course, there was no one here except a wayward goddess and a part-demon child. No one much believed in her anymore. Everyone had left ages ago when she had abandoned them to hunt Eris.

And Eris would suffer, and Eris would die… in a metaphysical sense.

Junten continued laughing regardless. Gliding over toward Isuki, she planted her hands on either side of the restless child and loomed forward until their foreheads were barely not touching. "I like the redecorating job, Isuki, don't you?"

The child nodded, looking around with poorly disguised awe at the huge, towering buildings that sat on the cave-like ledge carved into the side of the ravine.

Junten heard a slight scuttling around the bottom of the altar, turned her spear around and slammed it point down into the ground. She turned the shaft up again and twirled it slowly, displaying the dying coypu. "Although there is the small matter of pest control." She started laughing again. "But we can fix that."

Her unsettling chuckles were interrupted when she felt a small hand on her forehead.

"Daddy, are you feeling okay?" Isuki asked, her small voice tinted with an equally small amount of concern. Though it could just as easily have been fear.

"I feel better than okay, Isuki," she crowed with another outburst of something akin to disturbed giggles. "Much better than okay."

Eris would die, alright. Except it would be much worse than simply dying. She would die because Junten would hunt Sasori. Just like she had almost died when Junten had killed that Tsuboya. She had a sneaking feeling Eris had only survived because Tsuboya's death had looked like an accident. This time she would be sure that Eris knew the onus of her lover's death rested entirely on her. Another laugh.

"Daddy, are you sick? I'm gonna go find Mommy." She slid off the altar and took off, pulling out her wings.

It took a second for Junten to register that her sacrifice was running away. She lifted her spear and aimed it to throw. "You dare turn away from me, child?"

* * *

Michiko and Eris had swooped down into the cavernous hole in the rock wall undiscovered. Eris simply floated, so she didn't make a sound regardless, but Michiko had been worried that the sound of her wing beats might be detected. The worry had been needless, though; the soft thudding beats had been completely lost under the sound of constant, manic laughter.

Itachi's manic laughter. Or was it Junten's?

Michiko was about to land behind a large pillar of rock smell when the laughter came to a sharp stop and she felt a large flash of sudden heat, startling her into diving for the ground. She heard Eris chuckle, presumably from her reaction, but when she stood up it was gone.

After a while she realized she couldn't smell Isuki anywhere. There was Itachi, which was really Junten, and a few rat-like creatures, but no Isuki.

"Judging by the newly refurbished architecture," Eris whispered just as Michiko was coming to the same conclusion, "I'd say Isuki's been sacrificed already."

"Yeah," she mumbled, barely succeeding in her efforts to resist the tears storming her visionless eyes. She also mastered the urge to slam a solid kick at the pillar she was hiding behind: noise was a luxury they could not afford if they were going to surprise Junten. Instead her throat merely tightened again at the threat of tears, and she was sure that if the need to breathe was still a standard for her it would have shut off the oxygen flowing into her lungs. When Itachi – when Junten had stabbed her she thought she'd infinitely increased her threshold for pain, but this completely redefined "real" pain. This devoured her inside, like something was chewing on her heart.

How would she make sure Junten suffered? She didn't care: in her book the goddess was already dead. She'd get her, somehow. She didn't care how, but she'd get her.

She turned to where Eris' tell-tale, precisely defined void of no smell floated a few inches above the ground. "How are we going to kill this –" And she smelled something burning the air between the goddess' hands, something very familiar.

Michiko dug the toes of her shoes into the ground and lunged at Eris, catching her in a flying tackle around the waist. "_Are you insane? You'll kill Itachi!"_

The goddess twisted away and melted through her, floating up a safe distance. "Michiko, he's already as good as dead!" she snarled. "Now all you've done is alerted a seriously pissed off goddess as to our whereabouts and helped me blast off a chunk of her altar that should have been her! Do you have _any idea _what you've done?"

Michiko smelled something new form behind her a split second before –

"She's right, you know," Itachi noted, leaning against the pillar. "He's gone, dear. It's just me now." No, not Itachi. Junten.

Damn her.

'Michiko?' Michiko was oddly unsurprised to hear Eris in her head. After all she – used to talk to Itachi and Isuki that way all the time… 'There are times when the right thing to do is stand and fight. This is not one of those times.'

She was about to protest when suddenly she didn't know where she was. For just a moment there was no smell, no up or down, and then she fell back into the normal world. The smells were all the same except the rocks were in new places and Itachi – …and Junten was 50 feet away.

The body snatcher seemed momentarily nonplussed, then twirled around a length of wood she hadn't smelled before and slammed it into the ground. Another wave of heat shot out of it.

"Crap…" Eris grumbled next to her. "Michiko, do you know what a dirvis is?"

"You mean the little thing Isuki brought home? Not really."

"Well, take a crocodile and then stand it on its hind legs. Then replace its stubby hind legs with something long and sinewy and its feet with hooves. Give it arms with an unfairly long reach and sets of six claws that make its reach half as long again. Shorten its jaws, but give it hundreds of teeth as thin as wire but as long as your middle finger and spikes that run from its forehead all the way down its now longer, more powerful tail. Its eyes are now mere slits on either side of its head protected by heavy folds of scales, with a third eye on the back of its neck to make sure no one sneaks up on it, even though vision in that eye isn't quite as good as the others'. Now pretend that this demonic killing machine is the chosen animal of our newest nemesis, and the entrance to her temple is flanked by 16 foot tall statues of it. Now imagine that she's almost completely done animating them. What do we have?"

"…Invincible monsters?" Michiko ventured, not enjoying the mental picture she was getting. She eased a little closer to the courtyard where Junten stood, heat streaming off of her staff… spear in a continuous stream.

"Yes, that's exactly it. So you see, the only choice we have is to attack her directly, because if we kill her we kill the statues."

"No," she muttered. "You're not going to kill Itachi too."

"What do you mean 'too'?"

"If it weren't for your marmot issues Isuki would still be alive, but we can't save her now. There's no way I'm losing Itachi too." There was a way. At least, she hoped there was a way. She thought it would work. It had to work.

"Oh, is that so? So what's your big plan?"

"Just trust me," she hissed. "Itachi's not going to be the one who dies."

And she leaped out of her hiding place. She bolted across a large expanse of openness before finding shelter behind the wall of the temple.

"…Michiko," she heard Junten order in Itachi's voice. "And kill her. Don't stop looking until you've killed her."

Her throat constricted again, but she dismissed it. She simply stayed in place as the heavy thundering of surprisingly fast footfalls shot past her. Eventually, Junten turned to go inside. Michiko lost track of her smell – which was really Itachi's smell – for a while, then detected it again, this time about 80 feet up in the air.

Well, someone had a good view from the temple tower.

Sighing, Michiko lifted off the ground and stuck to her side of the wall until she hit around Junten's level, then sunk her now lengthened, hardened fingernails into the old stone, scuttling across its surface until she found a large, room-sized opening and bounded inside. After a split second she located Junten – still smelling like Itachi – who was standing regally at the edge of the nonexistent wall.

At almost the same time Junten appeared to notice her and strode over purposefully. "What are you even doing here?" she demanded snidely. "I have no quarrel with you."

"Oh, yeah, which is why you sicced your statues on me?"

"Well, you forced me into action. You're trying to interrupt my revenge."

"I wouldn't be 'interrupting' anything if you had just left Itachi alone!"

"It's no use, dear," Junten murmured, giving Michiko a chill when Itachi's fingers brushed across the side of her face. "Itachi isn't here anymore. He's dead."

Michiko would never get past how eerie it was to hear Itachi's voice saying he was gone. "Fine," she whispered brokenly. Her hand darted forward and latched onto the front of his cloak. It was just as odd to smell his surprise, but of course the expression wasn't his doing, was it?

Before Junten had a proper chance to react Michiko began dragging her closer to the edge.

"What are you doing?" she demanded as they teetered on the edge.

"Jumping."

"You'll kill us both!"

Michiko hesitated for a moment. _No, it's not Itachi,_ she reminded herself. "Itachi was my reason for living." There was no time for second thoughts as she grabbed his hand and pushed him over the edge without letting go and fell after him, hoping this would work.

She was just beginning to wonder if the whole idea had been pointless when tendrils of heat bolted from Itachi's hand into her arm and everything went dark.

* * *

The only good thing about falling such a long way, Junten reflected as she jumped bodies, was the fact that it gave you time to react. The switch was terribly disorienting, though. She couldn't see anything but blobs of color and vague shapes.

A quick search found the wings and deployed them. She winced when the rushing wind caught the new surface and nearly jerked them out of their sockets and pulled them closer to her, unused to the muscle system involving wings. She dropped faster again and spread them as gradually as she could without risking a painful confrontation with the ground. As Ripowal had told her once with a quiet chuckle, "It's not the fall that kills them, it's the sudden stop at the end."

She smiled vaguely at the memory. Even in an attempt to loosen him up the subject had been drawn back to death. Poor guy really needed a laugh, or just some time to unwind. If left to his own devices he would work himself right into the grave. _Ha_, she laughed distantly. _I made a joke._

There had been a time when Ripowal had made jokes. Before… actually, she couldn't remember what had triggered his devolution. He and Vilein had been the best of friends, so maybe it was that…

When she touched down she realized she still had Itachi's hand in a vice-like grip and dropped it disdainfully. She was even more surprised to discover that she already considered this her body and not Michiko's. Maybe it was the shape, the familiar contours. The body accepted her presence. This body was much more comfortable than Itachi's, not trying to reject her at all.

Although there was a small problem: she still couldn't see anything except shapes of color. She couldn't help but take a deep breath of victory: she was alive. Michiko's stupid plan had failed.

The world got brighter when she inhaled through her nose. There was something wrong with that. Like… like she was smelling with her eyes, or seeing through her nose.

Mortals, what was wrong with this forest? The vision got drastically worse in every body she took over!

She did detect a small rustle as Itachi apparently regained consciousness. There was also something else. A smell… far away… on top of a pillar… a burning smell… An instinct in her body told her to pull out wings and slap them against the ground, giving her an extra boost as she leapt to the side and rolled.

A crooked line of burnt air zapped through the spot she had formerly occupied, continuing to blast a sizeable chunk of ground into oblivion, which left behind an acrid, grass-flavored cloud that proceeded to settle on Itachi. It brought about a set of tortured coughs.

He made a soft moan before devolving back into ragged gasps followed by sharp, whistling intakes of breath. She was aroused, strange sensations circling through her – pity, remorse, and maybe even plain old sorrow at the torment he was suffering. Her own lungs ached just listening to the whooping, grating sounds blasting from his throat.

And Junten identified one of the sensations: the cessation of her breathing. Her lungs were not in use. She wasn't breathing.

Itachi was breathing.

Itachi was alive.

She was _not_ alive, yet not dead, so technically alive.

That energy bolt had been a near miss.

There was a strange not-smell in the air. A space where smell didn't go: a void.

Eris.

Junten felt a grin creeping up on her. "So, that was your great plan?" She made a big show of dusting herself off. "Get me to switch bodies and _then_ kill me? I'll admit, it might have worked had I still been in Itachi's pathetic waste of a body," she spat, nudging his arm with one foot contemptuously, "but Michiko is so much more useful. She has such wells of untapped power, and she's so _aware_ of her surroundings. I should have taken this body in the first place. Why didn't I?" she asked quietly, almost to herself.

"Because you don't think," Eris snapped, summoning up another air-burning attack. "All you do is act."

"No, I remember now: I was going to sacrifice her!" Junten retorted amid broken cackling. "And I wouldn't do that if I were you," she reprimanded, wagging her finger. "That would make Michiko's suicidal plan rather pointless, now wouldn't it?" She glided sideways until she had put Itachi between her and Eris.

Eris hesitated at that.

Junten smirked. "Is that because you know I'm right or because you know I can overpower you either way?"

"The only thing you seem to be overpowering is Itachi's gag reflex."

She glanced down and discovered Itachi, who had been beginning to stand up, on his hands and knees, head buried in the tall grass as he coughed into the dirt. The blood speckling the ground smelled very familiar.

Sighing, she grabbed a fistful of his collar and pulled him up to a standing position. He seemed in danger of falling over for a second before he steadied, bracing against her for balance.

"Michiko…" He was blinking constantly and it wasn't even synchronized: one lid followed the other, lagging behind like a confused puppy. "…'M drawing a blank…"

She reacted curiously. There was a strange, pulsing tingle in her thighs, and there was an unfamiliar need to reach out and comfort.

"You can't use him as shield!" Eris crowed triumphantly. "Michiko loves him!"

Junten hadn't expected another blast to follow that comment, so she had no time to think. She shoved Itachi out of the way with a growl and avoided the attack with a neat sidestep.

"I told you so."

"Don't pretend to understand me!" Junten snapped, taking two long strides over to Itachi, who was once more sprawled on the ground, and extended a hand to help him up. "There's just no fun in killing someone who isn't even lucid is all."

"Come one, Junten, what kind of excuse is that? You told me that any good hunter never passes up an advantage of any kind. You of all gods should know there's no fighting it."

"Shut up about Vilein! If you knew what that felt like you wouldn't be _here_; you'd be with the one you love!"

"I _would_ be if you hadn't shown up again! I'd be with the one I love and we'd be together in our room if it weren't for you, so don't you say I don't know!"

Junten processed this slowly. "…D– …Do you mean like… like _mortals?_ Like… _coupling? Mortals_, you're twisted! What kind of sick freak are you? You've gotten even worse than the _last_ time I saw you!"

"You're just jealous," Eris scoffed. "You and Vilein were just _partners_. Being a… What was the word we used to use…? Being a _mate_ has so much more gratification."

"Tick-tock, Eris, you're wasting time. The second he's capable of defending himself I'm going to kill him." A heavy thudding was getting louder in their direction. Junten smirked again and swept her Spear off its cushion of grass, pointing it at her oh-so-clueless rival. "And you just ran out of time."

For one who was about to be crushed/stabbed/trampled/eaten by giant statues, Eris seemed surprisingly calm. Junten got a feeling something wasn't right when the two hulking masses of stone smell stopped on either side of her.

With another growl of frustration she planted one foot solidly on Itachi's chest and pushed him away again before the mammoth granite fingers closed around her waist.

* * *

Itachi was really getting tired of sliding through the dirt.

When he pulled himself up to his feet again Michiko was suspended in the air by a colossal grey… thing. It was vaguely reminiscent of the thing Isuki had brought back except that it appeared to be a far more advanced and perfectly efficient killing machine.

He was beginning to question his sanity when the ground reared up in front of him and rolled, pushing him backward quickly enough to knock him off balance and fly him across the grass.

He now had a personal vendetta against the ground.

"Don't try going all heroic now," Eris admonished from above him. "We've had enough nonsense from you already."

He didn't bother to ask what she meant. Who knew what the goddess could be referring to? Besides, he did have a gaping hole in his memory from Isuki coming home to one minute ago…. "But Michiko –"

"Michiko isn't Michiko. Long story short, the Goddess of The Hunt possessed you, but she's in Michiko now."

He took a step closer to the grey creature and the person he knew as Michiko, who was brandishing a stick and shouting something that sounded like, "Put me down! I'm not Michiko, put me down, you idiot!"

"But –"

"Not Michiko," the goddess insisted. "Just _stay here_."

A foreign feeling of uselessness crept up on him as he was forced to watch. Michiko – who was apparently _not_ Michiko – rammed the stick against the creature's arm, and the creature stopped moving. Then its hand disintegrated, dropping Not-Michiko. She disappeared into the tall grass. The second creature was leaning over with intent to scoop her up when she appeared by the first one's left leg and slammed the stick against its motionless shin, which also dissolved. The paralyzed monster toppled over and crashed into the other one, and they both shattered. Large chunks of them sat in a clump dotted with pebbles and stone dust.

Itachi shot a worried glance at Eris, who was burning some sort of pattern into the ground. Satisfied that she wasn't paying him any attention, he slunk off in the direction of the person he was supposed to believe wasn't Michiko. Maybe that was true, but even so he couldn't stand to wait around.

"So, was that the pathetic culmination of your plan?" Michiko.

"No, that was unexpected, though I'd be lying if I said it wasn't tremendously funny." Eris.

"I can overcome the body of any mortal, no matter how suicidal!" That definitely didn't sound like Michiko.

"Not suicidal, Junten, just in love." Junten? Who the hells was that?

"Those two don't even have the vaguest of connections! Suicide is insanity!"

"Love is insanity. But a good insanity. You should know that if it makes you insane enough to think you can actually take me on."

"Not just take you on, but beat you! …Wait, what are you doing?

"Getting a mediator."

"Is that…? Oh, _no_, you're not _actually_ –"

Suddenly the world was considerably darker. It was as if everything had turned black. If hard pressed maybe someone could possibly find a shade of impossibly dark blue or purple, but for simplicity's sake everything was black.

A sizzle and a whoosh took over the air, followed by an eerie blue light edged with a rusty shade of red – red the color of dried blood.

Itachi peered over the block of stone that was his cover and saw a new figure. It was blue-ish pale, white-haired, bare-chested – male – and toting a scythe half as tall again as him the same way a child carries a wooden sword. He was wearing – for want of a better view – a black skirt that melted into the black grass and wound up over his torso and arms at odd angles in a long strip of cloth that looked like a black bandage.

"Ripowal!" Eris exclaimed happily, floating closer to the specter.

"Do not hug me," Ripowal sighed. It had menace, but above all sounded _bored_. "When _you_ need me I end up doing something unpleasant. Just because you're my sister doesn't mean I have to like it."

Who was this? Eris had a _brother?_ What was he supposed to be, God of All Things Dark and Gloomy?

"What about me?" Not-Michiko asked.

Ripowal stiffened, not even looking at her. "I have only one sister."

"Oh, come now, brother, just because you say it doesn't make it true. Don't tell me you're still sore."

"Sore about what?" Eris demanded, staring up at her brother.

Not-Michiko laid a hand on Ripowal's shoulder and leaned around him. "He's still mad that I talked him into supporting your banishment. I don't even know why: everything was so much nicer without you around, and nothing bad happened to _him_."

At that Ripowal whipped around and pushed his forehead against Not-Michiko's, and Itachi could he only assume he was glaring at her.

"Eris made sure Lakyria was out of my reach because of you, Junten. You and your stupid exile."

"She killed Lakyria?" Not-Michiko asked – no, wait, that must have been Junten.

"No, that would have been fine by me," Ripowal hissed. "She turned her into a bush. A bush. Because of you."

"Hey, it's not _my_ fault she turned your partner into a bush!"

"Yes it is. Eris can't help it: that's the way she is. She'll never learn. Maybe you will."

"And Lakyria wasn't his partner, genius," Eris chimed in, hugging her brother's forearm. He was head and shoulders and biceps taller than her, but skeletal thin. "Ripowal knows what it is to love a mortal. He's still not a mate, though," she added in a stage whisper. "Poor guy." This was directed up at Ripowal. "I did turn her back. How was I supposed to know she wouldn't remember how to be a human?"

"All she did was rustle in the wind…" he muttered distantly.

"Oh, I see, so Eris turns your… _mortal_ into a hedge and you disown _me?_"

"Eris was causing chaos. That's her job. You, however, were getting revenge, which was Vilein's job. Your behavior was inexcusable. Eris' was natural."

Junten glared around Ripowal at Eris. "You didn't want a mediator, you wanted someone who'd take your side!"

"How'd you guess? I know since I'm older I'm supposed to be more mature, but…" She stuck out her tongue at her apparently younger sister.

Ripowal put a hand on her head and ruffled her hair. "Watch it, Eris. You can't get lucky all the time."

"But I can be smart every day!" the goddess chirped.

Ripowal chuckled, then turned back to Junten. "Go. Go back to Sanctus, perhaps. Fenoag isn't Vilein, I know, but he _is_ the God of Vengeance now. He's actually a pretty decent guy."

"I don't care! She got Vilein killed, and she should be punished!"

"Isn't that why you got that Tsuboya killed?"

Itachi winced; Eris had expressed a good amount of aloof grief over him.

"That was you?" Eris demanded. "Mortals, I thought that was just those stupid raiders! You killed Tsuboya and you _still_ want revenge? What more do you want from me? My heart? My _soul?_" She lunged forward, but she met the resistance of Ripowal's arm. "_Sasori?_ Don't you touch him! Don't you even think about it! He's _mine!_ _My _mate! Leave him _alone!_ You already took Tsuboya!"

"Eris, calm down."

"And you took him! You didn't let me keep him, you bastard! It wasn't because you thought I'd lose your game, you wanted to take my mortal away!"

"You turned my mortal into a bush. I had a right."

"Yeah, Eris: an eye for an eye. You took Vilein, I took Tsuboya."

"Don't you get it, Junten? You don't need to do anything else to her. Transfer. Now."

Itachi still had next to no idea what was going on. Michiko slumped into a heap on the ground, and he had an automatic need to go help her, but he resisted. Making his presence known at this point would have been like standing on top of hill in a thunder storm wearing plate mail screaming that gods were meaningless axioms and wastes of space in the minds and beliefs of mortals.

Grass parted in a faintly straight line coming in his direction. When it got close enough he could see a vaguely rat-like creature scuttling closer to his foot.

Eris appeared in front of him and snatched it up. "Ha, nice try," she jeered at the rat. She carried the writhing rodent over to the edge of the cliff and some sort of encasement flowed out of her hands, trapping it in a green-tinted sphere. The creature bounced off the walls when Eris shook it and chittered rapidly, eyes glowing red.

"Watch your mouth," the goddess replied sardonically, flattening her hand and allowing the container to roll off and fall into the ravine. "That should keep you out of everyone's hair for a while!"

With swift detachment she went over to Michiko and kicked her, effectively waking her. Itachi didn't remember moving his feet at all, but he was next to her then, helping her up. He glanced back at Eris over his shoulder to see her next to Ripowal.

"Do not hug me," the deathly god insisted, sounding cross. "Do not expect anything else from me." He casually sliced through the air with his scythe, which ripped a stretch of space open. It emitted an icy blue light ringed with blood red until he stepped through it and vanished.

"Mm…" Michiko groaned. "Isuki… gone…" And she started to cry. "Gone!"

"…What?"

"Junten sacrificed her!" More sobs. And clinging. To him.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Eris interjected. "That doesn't mean she's _gone._" The goddess floated a short ways away and muttered to herself while she fished something out of the grass. She returned and dropped a struggling rat onto Michiko's head, which then tripped through her hair before it scrabbled down to her shoulder and squeaked loudly.

It then became Isuki, which weighed Michiko down. "Mommy! You found me! Can we play again?"

"You don't have to _kill_ someone to sacrifice them."

Michiko overcame the initial shock of having a rat become her daughter and hugged the child violently. "Thank gods," she spluttered. "That hurt more than when Daddy stabbed me."

"What?" That was new.

"We can fill in the details for both of you later," Eris grunted. "Can we just go back now?"

"Missing your mate?" Itachi inquired politely.

"What?" Michiko asked, glancing between them.

"Later," Eris snapped, floating off into the air. Michiko took a running start at the ledge and took off, dipping a little before her pumping wings took effect. Isuki followed and disappeared over the edge.

A brief panic seized Itachi until Michiko pulled her wings closer and plummeted after her, eventually coming back into view with a hold on one each of Isuki's hands and feet. The child's foot was dropped first, then her hand, and she landed upright.

"Isuki, Sweetey, you're not ready to fly yet."

"But I flew down here, just like Daddy told me to!"

Itachi raised his hands defensively. "Wasn't me."

"Sweetey, that wasn't flying. That was controlled falling."

"Oh."

"Well," Eris huffed, coming back into view, "I suspected something was wrong when no one followed me." A sardonic grin fell into place on her face. "Oh, that's right, half the party can't fly. What do we do about that?"

"Well, how about you take Itachi and I take Isuki."

"What? Why?"

"No offense, Itachi, but you're too heavy for me to carry."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Begging isn't going to do you any good. Eris doesn't have to work to fly, and I'm going to have enough trouble with Isuki. Please don't make this any more exhausting than it needs to be. Save it for later?"

"…Okay. Fine."

* * *

"Oh, of _course,_" Eris exclaimed, sighing. "_We_ get back from a harrowing battle with godly forces and Deidara's got his head in the refrigerator."

"Sorry, witch, I was here first, yeah. The oven's free, though."

"You see what I mean, Michiko?" the goddess exclaimed. "A guy like him shouldn't be allowed to talk."

"A guy like him should be a marmot."

Isuki looked at her mom curiously as she and Eris started laughing and high-fived.

"Mommy, I don't get it."

"I'll tell you when your older, Sweetey."

"Michiko, I don't get it either."

"…I'll tell you tonight, Itachi."

"I'm game."


	5. Monsters

_Isuki the seven year old, now. This... made me laugh so hard I almost wet my pants. Then again, that's not very impressive... Let's put it in perspective: this made one of my emo as emo can be friends laugh out loud in the library, and he sported a very disturbing grin the rest of the day._

_SLight language at the end, but it's Hidan, people: ya'll knew it was coming._

* * *

Monsters

"Can you keep your damn brat _quiet?_" Hidan demanded after another round of pervasive whimpering. "Some of us need sleep!"

"It's not my fault she has a crippling fear of the dark," Michiko returned wearily, but still with plenty of menace. "I'd love to see you do any better."

After a pause, Hidan smirked. "Okay. Ha, fuck you, I _will_." He had this idea forming in the back of his mind. How the hells did a seven year old develop a fear of the dark? More specifically a fear of the monsters that dwell in it? (No one had told him this, but the cries were easy enough to hear, even from his room.) Especially one who had grown up in an environment rank with evil?

They didn't. He was sure there was something up with the whole thing.

Michiko seemed surprised at first, then suspicious, then finally graduated into wry acceptance. "Okay then. Let's see how you sooth a child's fears… This should be entertaining."

"Outta my way, bitch. You can't stick around for this." She became immediately more suspicious, but suddenly relaxed.

"Fine." And she walked away, ducking back into her and Itachi's room.

Hidan snorted and pushed the door open, finding a huddled form looking out at him from under a mound of protective blankets. "I want my mom."

"Mommy's not here right now, you baby. I'm going to tell you a story," he informed her as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

Isuki seemed to perk up at that. "A story?"

"Yeah. 'Cuz once _I_ had monster problems, too," he lied.

"Really?"

"Of course. Everyone has at some point:

There were five ugly monsters jumping on my bed,

But one fell off and bumped its head.

So I called for the doctor and the doctor said,

"No more monsters jumping on the bed."

"Did they come back?"

"No," he told her curtly when she interrupted. "But different ones came back, and then:

There were four ugly monsters jumping on my bed,

And one fell off and cracked its head.

I called for the doctor and the doctor said,

"No more monsters jumping on the bed!"

"Why did you keep calling the doctor? Wouldn't you _want_ it to die?"

"No, you idiot, the doctor made them go away. But then even more would come back, so:

There were three ugly monsters jumping on my bed,

One fell off and slammed its head.

I called for the doctor and the doctor said,

"_No more monsters jumping on the bed!!_"

Hidan paused, waiting for Isuki to interrupt him again, but she didn't. Satisfied, he went on.

"Two ugly monsters were jumping on my bed,

Then one fell off and broke its head.

I called for the doctor and the doctor said,

"_**No more monsters jumping on the bed!!**_"

One ugly monster was jumping on my bed,

Until it fell off and splintered its head.

I called for the doctor and the doctor said,

"_**OH MY FUCKING GOD STOP CALLING ME YOU LITTLE BRAT!! SOME OF US NEED TO SLEEP AND IF YOU DON'T STOP WAKING ME UP AT THIS UNGODLY HOUR I'LL COME OVER THERE AND FEED YOU TO THE FUCKING MONSTERS MYSELF!! GOODBYE!**_"

Hidan glanced down at Isuki, who was staring up at him with eyes the size of small dinner plates… or maybe large dessert plates. He laughed a little to himself and left, sleeping soundly that night. And every night after that.

Until that one Deidara incident, that is…


	6. That Deidara Incident

_Well, it's official: this and the previous chapter are cheating! Both under 1,000 words! I think I just made these to entertain myself... Not that this chapter entertains me, just... argh, never mind. The point is that Isuki is a little more messed up now, and needs serious cuddles, people. Send her cuddles!_

* * *

That Deidara Incident...

Isuki cracked an eye open drearily when a thin beam of light fell on her, but she dismissed it and started to go back to sleep when it went away

Isuki cracked an eye open drearily when a thin beam of light fell on her, but she dismissed it and started to go back to sleep when it went away.

She subconsciously curled up into a tighter ball and shifted slightly, moving to the other side of the mattress. It was the middle of summer, so she tried to find cooler spots on it every once in awhile in her sleep. She got so stiflingly hot she didn't want covers, or even a sheet; it was just her and the bed.

Isuki half woke up again when a lack of light hit her closed eyelids like a cold shadow. She opened them again and saw the source. It was a shadow, and it was the shadow of a person.

It was the shadow of a Deidara.

Isuki tried to catch up to her mind, which was so asleep it was blindly running in circles. She knew sometimes she woke up when he'd get up in the middle of the night and pass by her room to get something to eat – or did she always wake up and he only did it sometimes? After all, his room was the one next door, her parents on the other… She sort of lost her train of thought when he landed on her.

Isuki floundered when he pushed the breath out of her lungs with his elbow and wormed his way down her, like he was aiming to completely crush her into the fibers of the bed. She might have tried to say something, make some kind of sound, but she was still puffing to get some air back.

She considered it a relief when he stopped, but he just proceeded to hug her waist and bury his face in her stomach, like she was some sort of giant pillow or something. He was grumbling something, but she didn't catch what he was saying, didn't care enough to catch it. After the initial crippling shock, she realized it wasn't that bad.

After all, he was in the room next to hers, right? He was probably just sleepwalking or something, or he had walked into the wrong room, right? Of course. She tried to wake him up, but when she did he glared at her.

So he was awake.

Or he wasn't really fully awake and he had no idea what was going on… or he slept with his eyes open… And glaring? Yeah, right.

He had pushed her shirt up a little with his forehead, and he was breathing deeply through his nose, like he was breathing her, and his nose was cold. Not wet, but cold, like that mangy flea-bitten mutt she had dragged home once. Either he was completely out of it or he was fully conscious, and either way it was beginning to scare her.

'Um, Mom? Dad?' she asked, mentally seeking them out and trying to withhold the panic.

'…What?'

'…Whaaa?"

'Um, Deidara's in here and I really don't know what's wrong with him.' She managed to put an immediate request into that uncertain statement, but it didn't seem like they picked it up.

'Go back to sleep…'

'_Please_…'

'Um, no, I was wondering if you come over here 'cuz he's really starting to creep me _out!_" Her voice jumped on that last word when his left hand started to run a little farther up her back and the other loosely tugged on the leg of her pants. 'Ohgodsmom

pleasegetoverherehe'sreallystartingtocreepmeoutandhelpmehelpme_helpme!_'

It was silent for a few seconds until her door bashed open and her eyes couldn't adjust quickly enough but someone swooped down on her and maybe kicked Deidara in the face? She couldn't be sure… And someone was holding her and telling her it would be okay and it would get better but she really didn't think she'd be able to forget. Even if he was asleep.

She could hear someone screaming, it sounded like her mother, and she could see in the light and she was hitting him, again and again, and he looked so pathetically disoriented.

She clung to her dad and stared.

He didn't fight back. He just got the living daylights beaten out of him and she didn't do anything to stop it.

Had that been wrong? He stopped playing with her, even when she asked, so she stopped asking. She had done something wrong, hadn't she? He ignored her for a while…

Until he had started saying she looked like her mother…


	7. The Unfolding

_This and the next two parts were originally one big section, but it was over 13,000 words long, so I have divided it up into bite-sized pieces for you to enjoy. Funny thing is, I started thinking of this in terms of a fold-able lawn chair, hence the odd titles._

_Anyway, this part was actually the second chapter I wrote about Isuki, which I find entertaining._

* * *

Reasons - The Unfolding

"Deidara, I need your help with something," came Michiko's voice from outside his door.

"Do you need something blown up? Because if you don't you should probably ask someone else right now," he added loudly, channeling all his attention back to the set of sculptures he was working on. They were going to be extremely elaborate, and they were going to be perfect in every detail. Because Michiko's deathday was days away, and he would have the best gift ever for her this time around.

"No, I really need _your_ help, now; you're the only one who listens to me besides Itachi."

"Then go talk to _him_. That makes more sense anyway, yeah."

"I can't," she insisted. "He's on a mission."

"Oh, yeah… Can't you just speak to him mentally?" he asked desperately, trying to get rid of her. It had to be a surprise, or it would be pointless.

"He's too far away, or I would."

_Oh, that__'__s okay_, he thought grouchily. _I can__'__t even play the fiddle very well, so the second one__'__s just _fine_ with me._

"Okay," he sighed, crushing the sculpture in surrender. "Come in if you must, yeah."

When she did she looked at him skeptically. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he muttered sarcastically. "I was just working on something that requires immense concentration, that's all."

"Oh… Well if you want I'll just leave, then…"

"No, now that you're here you might as well get it over with, yeah. What do you need my help with?"

Michiko sat down on his bed and stared at him imploringly with her somewhat unnerving sightless gaze. "I need your advice."

Deidara groaned inside; this would take ages. When she wanted advice she really almost always wanted comforting, and she was riddled with self-doubt. "Okay, yeah. What is it?"

"Well… it's Isuki."

"Wouldn't it be better to wait for Itachi to get back and talk to _him_ about this?"

"No, it can't wait," she blurted quickly, as if she didn't have to think about it. "She thinks now that she's hit her teens she should be allowed to hunt for her own food."

"Why shouldn't she, yeah? She's perfectly capable of it."

"I know, but I don't think she should yet."

"There. You say no, yeah. Isn't that the end of it?"

"…No," she whined miserably, "because I feel horrible and I'm second-guessing _every_ decision I make. She's perfectly capable, but the illusion's off and if she runs into a person she won't think they taste bad. I don't want her to have my problems, but the chances she'll run into someone are slim."

"Michiko, she'll be fine, yeah," he soothed, leaning back in his chair. "She's had the Sharingan since she was five, and now that she can finally fly…"

"I know, but she doesn't know its potential. And then I think it's the best way for her to realize that potential, and… I don't know, I get so confused."

"Michiko, you have a good instinct. Follow it."

"But when she brought it up, do you know how she did? She said that getting rabbits from the pen was _boring_. She wants to hunt things down and kill them herself. It makes me think this was a horrible environment for a child to grow up in, and I wonder if we should have stooped her at an orphanage or something, but then I think of how no one else knows the history behind her and wouldn't have understood why she didn't eat normal food and I know it was right to keep her here, but… It never stops, Deidara," she whispered painfully. "I'm a horrible parent; I can't even friggin' make _decisions_…"

She sounded so wretched Deidara was glad she had asked for advice. It sounded like she really just needed to vent and have someone tell her everything was going to be okay.

Deidara sat forward and propped his elbows on his knees. "I know a perfect way to make sure you're making the right decision, yeah." When she looked back up at him hopefully it felt like someone had his heart in their fist, but he continued anyway. "Whenever you have trouble making a decision, yeah, just ask yourself, 'What would Deidara do?' And then, do exactly the opposite."

Michiko chuckled quietly, and Deidara smiled. "It works for me every time, yeah."

"Come on, your decisions aren't _that_ bad," she tried to say seriously between laughs.

"Oh yes they are, yeah. Following them got me here, didn't it? You just be thankful your instinct isn't dysfunctional."

"You know, sometimes I'm not so sure…"

"Michiko, stop it; you have better instinct than anyone I've ever known."

Michiko eyed him curiously. "I wasn't fishing for compliments, but thanks, I guess…"

"I can even prove it!" he crowed in a fit of inspiration. He leapt out of his chair and soared to the door, locking it. "What does instinct tell you now?" he asked triumphantly.

"Um, that you're about to do something we're both going to regret…?"

"Good! Even if I'm not, that's what it seems like, and your instinct is probably screaming that you should get away before something happens." He swaggered over to the bed and sat down next to her. "It must be even worse now, right?" he whispered, breathing in her ear.

"Yes," she agreed hesitantly. "But that's because you're _trying_ to make me feel uncomfortable, so my instinct is being heavily influenced."

He sighed, exasperated. "Michiko, you never believe me when I try and tell you your life is good, yeah. Your instinct _has_ to be great," he insisted, grasping at straws, "because… _Because you didn__'__t pick me!_"

He grinned manically. "You followed your instinct and picked Itachi, so it has to be right, right? _Right?_" His eyes roamed over her wistfully, but he gritted his teeth and managed to hold back. She didn't want him, and that made her instinct almost perfect. But that didn't stop him from wanting her. And he _wanted_ her.

Gods, how he wanted her!

Michiko edged away and turned to face him, looking thoughtful. "That's my biggest problem," she mumbled ponderously, bowing her head and looking up at him from behind her blood red bangs. "Because I always second-guess that decision, too." She eased closer to him, slowly, cautiously, closing her eyes just before her lips brushed against his own.

His tension at the anticipation left him like a whoosh of breath, and suddenly instead of being uptight he was pounding all over. Then he felt everything at once, every pulse of blood in his limbs, the nervous twitch of his stomach.

He should have stopped it, he knew. He should have tried, but something possessed him to kiss her back, and he did, like… well, like one possessed. He pushed her down with his mouth, allowing the sensations to steadily escalate, increase, and he knew Michiko could feel it, too. His hands were braced on either side of her, and her arms were hooked around his neck, and the connection didn't break.

Their combined weight was taking a toll on his shoulders and neck while he kept himself up on all fours, though, so he slid down until he was propped over her on his elbows instead, grasping fistfuls of bed sheet in his now free hands to keep his muscles from spasming as the pleasure rippled through him. She tasted like something bittersweet and passing, and he crested it like a wave, riding it back down to reality. But reality was just as good.

The pulse of his blood sounded in his ears, and the rhythmic beating was like a metronome, giving him a tempo to work with as he began to insinuate himself against her, twisting slightly when clenching his fists wasn't enough to keep him from experiencing spasms of gratification anymore. He was tingling, and the sensation filled him full to overflowing, and he felt Michiko give a small gasp and a moan, and then there was more than just implicit insinuating motions.

And he continued, intensifying, kissing her with a hunger too long denied.

* * *

'Dad?' Isuki thought loudly, trying to pinpoint him. He was far away, or it would have been easier, but she was better at this than her mom.

'…Could you hold on just a moment?' he asked tersely. But despite the tone in his thoughts he let her inside his mind for a moment, and she wondered why she was being treated until she looked out his eyes and saw the cowering victim as he closed in for the kill.

Isuki felt a tightening in her core, like always, and she knew she wanted some of it. Her mom didn't understand how she felt, how she craved the thrill she got when she watched someone die, but her dad knew exactly what she was about. Her dad would let her go hunting in the forest for something other than measly little rabbits. But that wasn't why she had called him.

'What is it?' he asked curiously. 'I can't talk long.'

'It's mom,' she told him simply. 'I'm worried about her. I tried to call her, but she won't answer me. I can't even tell where she is.'

She could feel his pulse rise; he knew that she was the most skilled among them with mental communication, and if she couldn't find mom something was wrong.

'Are you sure?' he asked, and Isuki could hear the panic setting into his tone. 'Are you sure she isn't at the base?'

'If she is I can't find her. I've looked everywhere for her, everywhere she normally goes, and I can't find her.' Technically that was a small lie, because she hadn't checked Deidara's room, but he had told her not to disturb him because he was working on her mom's deathday present. Dad would have been miffed, so she didn't tell him.

Besides, Deidara was really starting to creep her out. Of course, they were still somewhat friends, in a way, but needless to say they didn't play like they used to when she was younger. No, the weird part was the way he always told her how she looked exactly like her mom, and sometimes she caught him staring at her curiously. It gave her chills.

'Okay then, don't worry.' Isuki heard him speak aloud, muffled though, as if heard from a distance. "Kisame, can you finish this by yourself?"

"Yeah, why?"

'Isuki? I'll be there as soon as possible. Under a day.'

'Okay, dad. See you soon.'

'Bye.'

'Bye.'

* * *

Michiko broke from her drift with a start, sitting up violently in bed.

_It was just a dream,_ she told herself calmly.

'Dream, or nightmare?' Jurag asked rhetorically.

'Nightmare,' she amended. 'Definitely nightmare.'

It had been so vivid, she couldn't be sure what it was on about. She chalked it up to not having seen Itachi in almost a week, and her subconscious was scratching her itch. Sighing, she lied back down and rested her head on her pillow.

Deidara was breathing quietly inches away from her face and she squealed, falling out of bed.

She organized herself and gathered the sheet she had pulled off around her for warmth and support, peering cautiously over the edge of the mattress at him. He was still sleeping soundly, and Michiko drew in a breath with the express purpose of sighing in relief. She dashed into the bathroom and got dressed quickly before making an expedient exit, hoping no one had heard her scream.

_Either this is a very elaborate nightmare, or I__'__m totally screwed._

'I don't think this is just a nightmare anymore, Michiko. And I think you already have been.'

Michiko groaned as she slipped out the door, squealing again when she was met by Zetsu hanging out of the ceiling. She fell back against the door briefly before she stood up again, giving him a steely glare.

"I didn't know you were sleeping with Deidara now. _Sir Leader isn__'__t going to be pleased… _Neither is Itachi."

Michiko gave a gurgle of indignation. "I'm not! I just woke up and he was there!"

"_She can__'__t even remember what they did…_ It would be a shame if Sir Leader found out, wouldn't it? _Indeed…_"

"You're not going to breathe a word of this to anyone. Not to the Leader, not to Itachi, or Isuki, and _especially_ not to Eris."

"_ I__'__m sorry,_ but there's already a bag missing a cat. _And I didn__'__t eat it, if that__'__s what you__'__re thinking…_"

"What do you mean?" she asked darkly, threatening.

"Itachi's on his way back. He'll be here later this afternoon."

"Did they finish early?" Please _say they finished early_.

"_No, Isuki called him back__…__ She tried calling you last night, apparently, but you didn__'__t answer…_"

'And you thought it was just your _conscience_ niggling at the back of your mind during your itch-scratching last night,' Jurag realized for her, laughing. 'Yep; you have been and will be totally screwed.'

Michiko ignored him and focused on Zetsu. "Don't tell anyone," she demanded with a little bit of plead. "I can fix this. This _so_ wasn't supposed to happen, but I can fix everything. If I insist nothing happened, Deidara will think that he dreamed it, just like I did, except he's not going to find out. _Right?_"

"Fat chance of that," his black side snorted derisively. "_But okay, if you _really_ want us to…_"

"Great. I'd hug you, but you really creep me out, so I'm just gonna go now."

* * *

Deidara woke up slowly, groggy, rubbing the sleep out of his eye and stretching his arms, yawning with the mouths on his palms as well.

He settled back in, closed his eyes, and wondered if Michiko had meant it when she told him she loved him last night, or if it had just been pointless words in the heat of the moment.

Smiling broadly, he slit his eyelid and glanced over at her - and she wasn't there. Panicked, Deidara sat up and stared at the other side of his bed, as if Michiko would rematerialize there if he looked hard enough.

It couldn't have been a dream, could it? He remembered everything, and that was the only explanation for why he was so tired, and it was so real, so vivid. It had been… mind-blowing, and he had never felt the things he'd felt before, and now he was supposed to come to the sad realization that it had only been a dream? No. It had been too absolute to be a mere fantasy… Right?

Suddenly he wasn't so sure anymore. The idea was so ridiculous; Michiko didn't love him, or want him, or need him, and she would hardly tell him the time of day, let alone _do_ anything with him. Obviously he was starved for affection, hers specifically, thus the way she made him feel transcended the barrier between the real and dream worlds.

_Still… if only that could have been real…_

Deidara groaned and rolled out of bed, assuming that because dreams did affect you physically, it was only logical he felt… so exhausted. He was tense and sore in muscles he never even knew he _had_… Sighing, he frumped over to his desk and stared blearily at the wads of clay sitting there, one crushed flat as a pancake.

Wait… he had been halfway finished with one of the sculptures the other day. It hadn't been squashed before the dream. Or had it? Nnnh; he couldn't even remember anymore. He could always ask Michiko… in a roundabout sort of way. Otherwise it could get really awkward, really fast. Especially for poor Isuki.

Next he frumped over to the bathroom. Something was off. The whole atmosphere of the bathroom was changed, as if someone else had been there… Which was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

He stopped when he was about to cup his hands under the faucet and gargle; there was skin under his fingernails. He examined it closely and found it wasn't his, for sure, because it was paper white. Ponderous, he went through his entire morning ritual anticipating the end when he would go talk to Michiko.

Normally he wouldn't even think of going to look for her, but these weren't normal circumstances. And besides, Itachi wasn't there, so it was all good. Otherwise… eek.

"Michiko?" he asked blandly when he opened the door and looked out.

No response.

"Isuki?"

"What?" Isuki asked equally as noncommittally when she turned the corner.

"…Where's your mother, yeah?" he asked reluctantly, cocking his head.

"Why?" she returned skeptically.

Deidara paused. She had never actually questioned him before, just told him what he wanted to know. She was getting to be exactly like her mother. "I am going to go stealthily retrieve input on the sculptures I'm making for her, yeah," he lied between his teeth.

"There's more than one? Can I come, too? I can help; when I'm there conversations between you two aren't nearly as awkward."

"…Um, no," he replied, frozen inside. Isuki was a lot more observant than she let on, and she was worming into the problem. "It'll be a surprise for you, too, so I don't want you being privy to the plan, yeah. Sorry."

"Oh… okay…" Deidara sagged when she sighed, sounding so disheartened. "She's in the kitchen, I think, but she might be getting herself a rabbit." At that she made a face.

"Thanks." He patted her head as he passed her, and added appreciatively, "You know, you seem more like your mother every time I see you."

"Thanks, I guess," she muttered insincerely, glaring at him out of the corner of her eye.

Deidara was shaken. _She _is_ just like Michiko_, he realized sadly. _And she__'__s got an unnerving amount of Itachi in her, too_. He drifted slightly quicker than he had planned over to the kitchen, as if the air in the hall had suddenly become charged with darkness and it was in his best interest to get out of there. He turned into the kitchen and flooded with relief before he collided with Michiko on her way out.

"Watch where you're going," she snapped irritably, swatting at his shoulder.

"Michiko," he asked reticently, diving straight into it immediately, "did you have an odd dream last night?"

She didn't even bat an eyelash. "No. I don't dream. Why?"

Something flashed in her eyes, though, and he wondered what it was. "Because I had this really weird dream, and you were in it, and so was I…"

"Is this something I want to hear?" she asked scornfully, gesturing to a point behind him. His scope locked in on a furtive, blurred reflection in one of the pots by the sink that was still recognizably Isuki.

Her eyes shifted, and something was communicated in that glance. It was as if they shared something, very briefly in that look. Like she was telling him without words: I had the same dream last night, but it wasn't a dream.

It was a mistake.

He nodded slightly, relieved and at the same time crushed by the realization. It was something they had never been meant to share, and they never would again. He was distracted by the disappearance of the blur, and then he saw her dash past the other opening in the wall.

"Daddy!" she shrieked happily, flying at Itachi when he got through the door and knocking him back out onto the ground. Literally. Her dark, wine red wings that matched her hair were slightly too big for the width of the main hall, but she pulled them in before they got any serious damage and hit Itachi like a missile.

Deidara got a small satisfaction watching him get bowled over and hearing the air whoosh out of his lungs. He glanced over when Michiko slipped away and stood in the doorway, laughing and helping them both up. He chuckled slightly when she had him halfway standing and Isuki latched onto him again, dragging him back down flailing his arm comically, and then he saddened considerably.

Michiko managed to pull Itachi back through the door and shut it on Isuki, stand up on her toes, and plant a kiss squarely between his cheek and the corner of his lips. You can say a lot of things with a kiss like that.

Deidara turned his back on them when Itachi looked at her in this no-nonsense way and hugged her tightly, rolling across the wall and keeping her pressed up against it softly while he kissed her back.

He was halfway back to his room when he realized Isuki must have found her way back inside because he heard a shrill, "_Eeeeeeeeew!_ Gross, cut it out!", and he tittered bitterly. She streaked past him with an arm flung over her eyes, darting out the back way. He sighed wistfully, watching her shoot up into the air and disappear into the forest.

There was a time passed when she would have clung to his pant leg and _begged_ to play with him.

* * *

Isuki shot through the trees, whipping over, around, and between trunks as if she had been flying all her life instead of under two weeks.

She didn't know where she was going yet, but she was really just aiming for "away".

Honestly. Her parents could be so… _disgusting_. They were both so insensitive to the fact that she didn't appreciate when they… ugh. You'd think they could be a little more… mature about it.

Deidara didn't help. She hardly even felt like a _person_ around him anymore. It was like she was wearing some big label on her forehead: "Looks like her mother." She wasn't even Isuki; she was just her mom's daughter.

Everyone else practically ignored her, and the only three who didn't were the ones she _wished_ would ignore her: Maddie, Tobi, and Eris. Maddie was just so… ingratiating all the time, trying to be her friend and stuff. It got pretty damn annoying. Tobi was even worse, because he was too chipper (she was sure he had to be smoking Zetsu or something to be _that _happy all the time), and whenever he wasn't it was like she was this little fly that looked interesting for a while until something prettier fluttered past and lured him away. And _Eris_, _she_ was the worst. It was like she hated her or something, but she didn't really mind so much because she hated her right back. If looks could kill, Isuki would have been dead a hundred times over. Eris did everything in her considerable power to screw with her life.

At this rate she would surely develop some sort of complex.

But Sasori helped. He was always so calm and collected, like he understood how she felt about "humans". Like he didn't really care that she was a freak of nature and lived for the kill. Sometimes it felt like he was the only one who could actually relate to her, and it was a depressing yet comforting feeling.

It was partially the way he was always so cool, but he still managed to radiate this… warmth. And she tried her best to reflect it back at him, because she always felt like she owed him something, but she wasn't sure he even noticed.

Even if he did he just didn't show it very well, thanks to his quiet dignity (that was one of the reasons she was really starting to dislike Deidara; she had overheard him one time saying that he had "all the expression range of a rock, yeah", which was _so_ untrue. He had so many expressions; he just didn't use them very often. It was so worth it to see him smile, too, because she always got this little sparkling blaze in the pit of her stomach, like how she imagined anything but rabbits would taste except even better because you were never expecting him to actually _smile_ at you.), he probably avoided it even more so because Eris was always hovering, quite literally, over his shoulder, and Isuki could tell if Eris was a voodoo goddess she would look like an acupuncture addict by now.

Her life would just be a whole lot better in general if Eris ceased to play a part in it.

Isuki felt her lips curl back into a devious, fanged grin, and veered to the left, turning off her random course by two degrees and tilting east. Sometimes her brain worked so diabolically fast she really loved her dad.

If she were to turn in a report, per se, and reveal the location of the base, the entire forest would be crawling with nin from every village that could be mustered. She could arrive back at the base staggering in mid-flight, exhausted, telling them she had barely escaped one of the patrols spearheading through the forest and that it wouldn't take long for them to discover the base. Sir Leader would evacuate, and everyone would leave, but… what? Eris would have to be left behind? Oh, dammit…

Giggling, Isuki poured on some more speed and barreled through the trees, streamlining her body until the foliage was hardly even a blur, more like a smear on a blank canvas… She snatched up a squirrel from its branch and crushed it into her fangs, savoring the tang of its blood sliding down her throat.

The air was rank with victory.

* * *

_What an evil child! So, next part just continues this, no age change whatsoever._


	8. The Sitting

_Well, here is the next part in all its glory! It's creepy, convoluted glory...! ...I think I actually got some of my friends to hate Deidara after this and The Incident, which was totally unintentional._

* * *

Reasons - The Setting

"Deidara, stop it…" she mumbled, begging. Well, she tried to, but with his mouth in the way it was more like, "Hmgmgm, hm gm…"

Michiko was frantic, pushing at his chest and failing to budge him. She had to stand there and let herself be kissed.

She felt sick, being so meek and tractable.

After a few minutes more he broke away, but she could tell he wasn't finished with her yet. After last night, why should he be? She tried to say something, call out, scream, gurgle, but before she could even draw a breath to speak he cupped his hand over her mouth.

"Shhhhhhhh," he whispered in her ear, nuzzling her neck with his face and lips. "We don't want anyone to hear us, now do we?"

Michiko sagged and shook her head slightly, wincing when the tongue slipped past her lips. There was no point in even trying to get anyone's attention. Belatedly she realized she could have screamed into Itachi's mind and woken him up… woken everybody up. But she really didn't want anyone to help, because they would see, and they would know. Especially not him.

He rubbed against her, and she moaned, bringing up her hands and trying perfunctorily to push him away, with the wall braced behind her. Again, and this time she felt a rippling shudder course through her as well, and she melted against him.

"You like that, do you?"

_NO!_ she wanted to scream. _NO! I don__'__t! I want you to stop, and I want Itachi! Stop touching me!_

But if she did he would stop, just like before, and ask her if she prefer he go and talk to Itachi. And she didn't want him to. It was blackmail of the worst kind.

Michiko slowly let her fangs protrude more and more before finally sinking them into his right tongue. He hardly even flinched, just pulled his hand away and looked at her with a funny yellow-green.

"Stop," she whispered between the ragged breaths she needed to talk. "Please, please stop…"

He seemed almost speculative, and she hoped, hoped, hoped he would stop. She was so tired, and her lips were bruised.

"Hm, no," he answered sardonically. "You still owe me, remember, yeah? I haven't told Itachi anything. Yet," he added.

Michiko lifted her head and stared at him. "If you don't stop, and you don't leave me alone, _I_ will tell Itachi. I'll tell him all about how you took advantage of me, and how I had no choice, and how you hurt me," she told him quietly.

"Ah, well," he sighed flippantly. "It doesn't really matter to me, yeah. He can't kill me, so I'm fine. But you, you're fair game, especially for abandoning, and do you really want to hinge your survival on what type of mood he's in?"

Michiko hung her head. She was defeated, and he knew it. Either way she got the worst of it…

…_That__'__s right_, she realized. _Either way I get the worst of it, so why should it have to be this one?_ She had better options. And there was always a chance Itachi wouldn't skewer her.

"I… I'm going to tell him," she told him confidently. "I'm going to tell him. I'm going to tell him." And she left. Just like that.

It was so easy! She should have done this _ages_ ago, before… Michiko shook her head and hit her temple, as if trying to dislodge the sickening memories clinging to the inside of her skull.

'Itachi? Itachi, where are you?'

She could hear him yawn mentally. 'Wha…? Wha's going on?'

She turned through the halls, walking it off until she reached their room. She liked the sound of that: their room. Not Deidara's room, but _their_ room, where they were equals in ownership and free will. 'I just wanted to talk to you about something,' she explained evasively as she opened the door.

'Oh… Okay…'

Michiko swept over to the bed and slid in next to him, hugging him tightly. 'I missed you,' she muttered, clinging to him.

'So did I,' he responded in kind, kissing her gently. That was what a kiss was supposed be, not something with enough force to bruise. It still hurt her, though.

'Don't go away again,' she pleaded, kissing him back regardless of the pain.

'I'll have to sometime,' he muttered reluctantly, as if he wasn't too fond of the idea himself.

'Don't leave me alone with Deidara.' She froze; that wasn't how she had planned on broaching the subject.

Itachi paused. "Why?" he asked darkly. And then his tone changed completely, picking up speed as he realized more and more. 'Michiko, are you alright? Did he ...? Bastard, I shouldn't have been gone so long. I should've known something like this would happen sooner or later. I should've known he'd try something. I should've... Are you alright?' he asked tenderly. 'Because if you're not I…'

Michiko vaguely noticed that he had trailed off in the middle of his sentence, but she was too busy crying to care. She hadn't cried in years, since Osanai - in fact, she was sure Isuki had never seen her cry. She must have looked like such a callous, cold-hearted creature to her.

She hated crying. She hated herself for crying because it made her feel weak. But right now she _was_ weak, and she just needed someone to tell her everything would be okay. She was so weak…

She felt his arms wrap around her, exuding comfort and support. Still crying, she clung to him with renewed fervor and pressed the side of her face to his warm, warm chest. His heart beat deeply in her ear, slowly, steadily, and it was so rhythmic… It began to put her in a drift, like a lullaby. When she lost her connection to any semblance of a conscious reality she heard him say something, but she didn't quite catch it. Still, she was satisfied with the feel of his lips by her ear, and she drifted with the knowledge that she wasn't alone.

Itachi was there, holding her close, and everything was good.

* * *

Isuki had debated silently over whether she should reveal the location of the base straight after she had the idea, or later, in the early morning, giving everyone who actually slept some chance to fade away entirely.

She was currently camping out in a large nest she had found a long time ago until the sun rose high enough for her arrival at the village not to be suspicious. She could tell it was one of Eris's because there were several of her odd, shimmering strands of hair and a scrap of that weird sigil-marked cloth that made up most of her clothes. Relaxing considerably, Isuki had rolled onto her back and stared up at the fading pink sky through the thick canopy above her.

_Ha. You__'__re nest is giving me comfort, you spiteful rhymes-with-witch!_

Before she arrived she had flown several laps around the perimeter of the forest in an attempt to look as windblown and out of breath as possible, as if she had barely managed to escape something.

She dropped down to land inside the perimeter of the thick trees that edged the forest and ran out towards the village gate as fast as she could, stumbling on purpose as she tore down the path. Looking back, the mistake her mom had made was telling her not to go to the village, ever, instead of not alerting her to its existence.

Panting heavily and forcing tears to roll down her face - a handy trick she had learned from Maddie - she ran up to the nearest gate watchman and grabbed his forearm tightly.

"Let me in!" she sobbed, sounding perfectly panicked. "They're coming, and -"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down," he soothed, looking down at her. "What's wrong?"

"They're gonna get me!" she shrieked. "Let me in!"

The guard turned to his partner, who glanced at her briefly before nodding and pulling out his part of the gate bar. Her guard pulled his out, too, and ushered her in while the other remained vigilant outside the gate. He briefly explained what had happened to the guards of the inner gate and went back to his post, leaving her sobbing copiously in front of two new people.

The woman took charge, bending over and setting a hand on her shoulder.

Isuki flinched away from her frantically, staring at her wide-eyed. "I-I don't like to be touched…" she muttered, leaving a question hanging disturbingly over the guards' heads: why. She had planned this whole thing out the previous night; she needed an alibi, a reason for knowing where the base was.

"Okay then," the woman replied relatively kindly. "We'll just figure out what's happened and then we can let you in."

Isuki hadn't anticipated this.

Someone walked out through the inner gate, and suddenly the two guards with her stood up a little straighter. He looked like a ghost. And not just because of his oddly long, wispy black hair and his pale skin, but his clothes, too. His clothes were white, and his sleeves were overly long and wide. But what struck her most were his eyes, because they were pupil-less and a shade of lavender so light they were almost white, and they made him look blind. But the way he looked at her, she could tell that not only could he see, but see things no one else saw.

"Why haven't you let this girl in yet?" he asked them calmly. He barely sounded like he was admonishing them, but was instead merely curious. It seemed like it would be almost impossible for him to sound upset with his airy, melodious voice.

"Well," the man began, sounding flustered, "we just got her past the main gate, and we still need to examine her…"

"She's not in disguise, if that's what you're wondering," he murmured, not taking his eyes off her. "There's something odd about the structure off her back, but other than that she's a normal child in need of help."

Her wings! He could see her wings pulled in beneath the first layer of skin on her back!

"I was just going to go walking, anyway, so I'll take you where you need to go, okay?"

His voice startled her out of her shock, and she nodded dumbly, renewing the stream of tears trickling down her face. He offered her his hand, but she shook her head violently and started to walk toward the gate. It opened by the time she reached it, and the ghost man easily caught up with her.

She looked around in awe, and she didn't need to fake it; she had never seen so many people at once. Everything was so colorful, and everyone was moving, and they seemed so crowded.

"There are so many people," she muttered, looking up at the man curiously. "Do you ever lose any of them?"

"What, do you mean like they go missing, or go rogue?"

"Either," she replied shortly.

"Yes, sadly. Last time we had someone go rogue was… almost 15 years ago, if I remember right. And I always do. That was when Sasuke Uchiha became a missing-nin."

Isuki tensed slightly upon hearing his name; obviously they were related somehow.

"And a few months before that Michiko Kattonodoki actually went missing. She's dead, apparently, because when Sasuke's older brother stopped by for a very surprise visit a month after he said they had kidnapped her and extracted her demon, which killed her. Sasuke wasn't quite right after that…"

_And she is dead, just not in the way they think…_

"And several years earlier Sasuke's brother, Itachi, had killed the entire Uchiha clan and become a missing-nin. Those are the most significant losses we've suffered within the last decade."

_I have an uncle?_ Isuki thought slowly. _And nobody told me?_

"So why are you really here?" he asked shrewdly, startling her.

"I was trying to forget," she mumbled, looking down at her feet as they walked. "Because I finally got away from them."

"Who?" he asked gently.

She let her eyes begin to tear up again. "The evil people. The ones who… who t-t-touched me, and made me touch them…"

He pulled this disgusted face, which let her know it was working, and asked again, "Who?"

"I don't know. I think they were… Akatsuki, or something? They mentioned that name a few times."

Ghost man slowed considerably, probably surprised to hear that name at all. "I'm going to have you talk to someone, okay? Someone I know who can help."

"Okay…"

After continuing at a faster pace down the streets, they eventually arrived at a tall, circular building and braved the winding stairs up to a corridor dotted with doors. He entered one without knocking and beckoned for her to follow.

There was a middle-aged man there, and as far she was concerned it looked like his silver hair had spent far too much time in a wind tunnel. "Hey, Neji. What's this?" he asked blandly, gesturing to her with one hand, his face resting on the other.

"Not 'what', Kakashi: 'who'. And she is potentially the key to exterminating the wasp nest more commonly know as the Akatsuki base." The ghost named Neji turned to her. "Tell him your name."

Kakashi was now sitting up more attentively, staring politely at her.

"Isuki…" she muttered, scuffing her shoe on the carpet. _Last name would not be so good at this point._

"Nice to meet you, Isuki. I'm -"

"Kakashi," they finished at the same time. He blinked at her, waving to Neji that he could go.

"You know, I'm having the strangest feeling of déjà vu right now…" He shook his head. "Never mind. What do you know about the Akatsuki?"

"…I've been their slave for as long as I can remember…" True enough; she certainly didn't get enough respect.

"Really? What village are you from?"

"I don't know; I never really knew my parents…" True enough; she didn't really _know_ them.

"Interesting. What did you do at their HQ?"

"…Not much by myself. When they felt like it they played with me." A complete fabrication, but sacrifices must be made.

Kakashi winced and looked at her like he wanted to hug her and tell her she'd be okay but was afraid she'd freak out. "Well you'll be okay now. I -"

"West," she blurted. "About four hours west, as the crow flies."

"Right." He got up from behind his desk and arched his back. "Oh, I really hate this job," he told her conspiratorially. "I swear I spend half of my life behind this desk now. Now, stay here. I'll send someone to take care of you, but right now I have to get word out that we know where their base is, okay?"

"…But I wanted to go get some ice cream and honey…" she whined sadly. "They always told me it tasted delicious, but I never got to try any. I always just got painted with it and then -"

Kakashi shuddered and caved. "Alright. Here, I'll give you some money for ice cream and honey, but you have to come right back here, okay?"

"Okay," she lied through her teeth. "I'll come right back here." She smiled at him until he left, and then she stuffed the money in her pocket and took off, bumping into some weird guy in a funny hat. When she looked up at him she noticed he had lazy eyes, sort of like Sasori's, except not as pretty. He only called her "troublesome" before he walked away muttering, and she stared after him for a while curiously; he sounded like Zetsu, but he didn't talk back to himself.

Once she reached the outskirts of the village, where people walking along the wall were scarce, Isuki dug her claw-like fingernails into it and climbed up to the top, taking a moment to soak up the sun. The mere experiences she made up were enough to give her chills, and she needed to feel slightly normal again for a while.

Then she spread her red wine wings and dropped off the wall, shooting out into the forest and circling around a few times before stopping back at Eris's nest to wait out the few days it would likely take them to muster all the forces they would need to take out her family.

* * *

Itachi couldn't get out of bed.

Michiko was still heavily drifting, and her arms were hugging his neck, and he _could not get out of bed._

He really didn't want to break her drift so he could move, because she looked like after what she'd been through she really needed to let everything wash off her mind…

The thought made his stomach clench. And his teeth. And his fists.

Sir Leader had told him ages ago that he was not allowed to kill any other members without his say-so. Not even Deidara. And he doubted that he would consider this an offense worthy of death. Otherwise the bastard would have already been dead with the minimal effort on Itachi's part, just like one can take care of one's problems with a small force inserted between two warring nations, or a kunai inserted between the third and fifth ribs. Still, even with that technique counted out he had plenty of options left.

After all; there are things _so_ much worse than _death_.

Grinning, Itachi moved to get up when he remembered Michiko was still attached to him. He sighed, nearly resigned to his fate… when he suddenly got an idea. He turned over so he faced away from her, pushed himself up into a sitting position and leaned over so she was resting against his back, hooked his arms through the back of her knees, and stood up. That wasn't very complicated.

He still couldn't put a shirt on over her, with her forehead slumped on his shoulder, but it wasn't very cold anyway. Except, she was cold, but he had gotten used to that.

Through some clever maneuvering he managed to open the door, and he was out in the hall. Freedom! And Michiko was still asleep, too.

He figured it must have been around noon the sun was so bright, and he realized that he was starving. How would he eat with Michiko on his back? Who knew; he would cross that bridge when he came to it. Meanwhile he made his way to the kitchen.

On his way there he passed through the main hall, and there he found a useless blonde sack of pus sitting there, eating. He stood there a while, staring hatefully, waiting for him to notice.

When he did he shrunk back slightly, but briefly as well, and then returned with his own glare. His whole posture just said, "_What?_"

Itachi didn't dignify this with a response. He just waited, waited for him to move, waited for him to give him a reason. After a long silence, he snorted and muttered, "Bastard."

He was turning to go when he thought better of it and sparked the table Deidara was sitting at. It grew into a good sized fire quickly, enough so that he didn't have time to move away before it crawled off the table and onto his arm. He still didn't react, just staring at him smugly, like knew it was just an illusion and couldn't hurt him. He said so.

Itachi sighed, as if defeated, and took the illusion off, smirking.

Deidara's eye widened in shock and pain, and he looked surprised to see the fire still there, feeling it burn him.

Itachi smirked as he watched him stare, dumbfounded, or maybe just dumb, at the sight of the flaming black tendrils licking away his skin like a cat licking scraps of meat off a bone, the sound of crackling, the feel of its heat withering his arm, the smell of burning cloth and his own charred flesh, and the acrid taste of smoke in the air. He looked up at him curiously in a detached sort of way.

"Most people don't expect that, so don't feel too stupid," he reassured him smugly. "My starting a real fire and giving it the illusion of being fake."

Realization must have dawned on him violently; Itachi was able to savor the look of pure terror on his face only briefly before he was gone, probably to find water.

Itachi laughed, stopping when Michiko groaned and stirred slightly. Most people didn't expect _that_, either; when he made a real crappy illusion, then explained how it was real after he had improved it, not realizing it was just an illusion after all.

For now, at least, his revenge was complete.

He jumped when something heavy slammed into the door.


	9. The Collapsing

_And we've survived to the collapsing of the lawn chair that is this section! 'Tis sad, but oh well, we must be brave until the final section._

* * *

Reasons - The Collapsing

Isuki had flown back to the base as fast as possible when she heard the first signs of people searching around the forest.

It had only been, like, seven hours! How could they have been ready so quickly?

At least it lent a little more realism to her panic; she had lost control for a second at the end and slammed into the door. She was sitting there all crumpled up and sore when her dad opened it and looked down at her curiously.

She was about to tell him when she got chance to give him her own curious look; he was carrying mom on his back. Remembering the urgency, she shook it off and spoke directly into his mind.

'There are people in the forest! I think they're looking for us!'

'What?' he asked skeptically. 'What did they look like?'

'I'm not sure; they were all wearing different stuff. Most of them had these ugly green vests, though, and it looks like they have big red targets on the back.'

She knew she had said something right when he tensed and muttered, "_Crap._"

When he shot back inside Isuki followed him closely, watched as he tried to shrug mom off his back and onto one of the tables when he got pulled back down because she wouldn't let go of him. Sighing in an irritated fashion, he latched onto her wrists and pried her hands apart, leaving her on the table.

"Isuki, wake her up," he ordered brusquely as he swept out of the room. "Tell her we're leaving."

Isuki nodded solemnly, but she was smirking on the inside. "Okay."

He left, and she knew he was going to tell the Leader. And then they would leave, and Eris would be left behind, and she wouldn't be hovering over her and Sasori all the time and she could actually be _natural_ around him. Well, as natural as was really possible.

She trotted over and shook her mom by the shoulder.

It didn't even pull a reaction from her.

Sighing, aggravated, she put a hand on her shoulder blade and her hip, shaking her again. "Wake _up_, damn you," she muttered under her breath. 'Wake up.'

She groaned a little, rolling away and curling up into a tight ball. "No…" she mumbled. "No… Please, stop it, Deidara, make it stop… It _h-hurts…_" she choked, tears beading at the corners of her eyes. "Hurts me, please, don't… Please stop, please… Stop… Stop… please…" Tears made a glimmering trail sideways down her face once they encountered gravity, begging intermittently for Deidara to stop… doing something, or help her stop something, stop someone hurting her.

Isuki couldn't stand it anymore, seeing her mom cry; it made her look so weak and vulnerable. She rolled her back over until they faced each other and slapped her. "Mom, _wake up!_"

Her eyelids popped open and she sat up, hugging herself and shivering slightly. "What is it?" she asked frantically. "What -?"

"Mom, there's people in the forest looking for us - I think most of them are from that village you told me about - and we're leaving, because they're getting close. Dad told me to wake you up and tell you we're leaving _now_."

"What…? That can't be right… How could they have known? We killed Osanai…" She looked distressed, but Isuki didn't care; she had orchestrated this, and she would see it finished.

"Who knows, but the point is we're leaving, and -…"

Isuki trailed off when everyone started appearing in the room with splooshes and puffs and shadows. The Leader was the last to materialize, and once he did everyone turned to him expectantly.

"I'm sure everyone has heard by now that somehow information on our whereabouts has leaked out. And just like it, we will leak out ourselves, retreating into the shadows." Almost as if to emphasize his point he shifted back slightly, becoming enveloped in darkness.

"'Your enemy should not know he is your enemy until he can see your sword growing out of his chest,'" she heard her dad mutter wryly, reaching out for her mom's hand and lacing their fingers together.

She wondered if she was the only who noticed the way Deidara watched them; bitter, wistful… mostly contrite, though.

"It's a little late for that now, yeah. If they didn't know we were their enemies they wouldn't be looking for us now."

Mostly contrite.

"Let's not go about this all wrong, eh?" Eris suggested sarcastically. "I can tell they're getting even closer. Ten minutes, tops, and they'll be banging down your door. If you're going to leave," she added forcefully, pinning Sasori with her hawkish grey eyes, "now would be the best time."

"That could give us just enough time to be sure they can't track us."

"There're advance scouts, though, that'll be here in under two minutes," Eris added offhandedly.

"What? Why didn't you mention that earlier, back when it would have been _useful?_" Sasori demanded, scowling at the goddess.

Eris cocked her head to one side, and stared at him with something like bemused amusement. "I don't know…" she muttered insipidly. "If you need to me to hold them back I can, since I have to stay behind again anyway…"

"That's ridiculous," he scoffed.

Eris sagged in the air, whereas Isuki felt like punching it.

"You don't get to have _all_ the fun," he added, an invigorating glint in his eyes and an edge to his smirk. "I know _I__'__m_ staying."

Isuki was glad she had inherited her dad's gift for appearing perfectly emotionless, because inside her jaw hit the floor and she was tearing her hair out.

How had this happened? The whole point had been to leave Eris behind, not lose Sasori, too. She calmed herself down quickly and bobbed to the surface of the conversation.

"Why stay when you'll have to leave afterwards, anyway?"

Everyone looked at her as if noticing her presence for the first time. Eris was trying to kill her with the look in her eyes, but Sasori didn't seem to notice. Or he was really good at pretending he didn't notice, just like he was good at everything else.

"I don't know about the rest of you," he explained to the group in general, though he was staring straight at Isuki, "but I haven't killed anyone in a while, and this seems like the perfect opportunity."

"Yeah," her mom agreed, as if something was just dawning on her. "I'm getting tired of rabbits. I've got this recent hankering to kill someone," she added maliciously, shooting Deidara a scathing glare.

"Same here," her dad matched, standing behind her.

"Well, I guess that means I'm staying, too," Kisame mumbled, scratching the back of his head.

"Me too, me too!" Maddie chirped, floating through the wall.

"_I am sort of hungry… _ Yeah, let's do this!"

"Remember; you don't eat the ones I mark."

"I'm not going to forget that, Sasori; the ones you mark are filled with poison."

"Well, depleting their little army is a great chance to increase my own."

"Save some of them for me, you greedy bastard! Sacrifices don't grow on trees, you know."

"…Fine," Kakuzu huffed. "Whatever."

As Isuki wallowed in the unexpected setback in her plot, everyone stared at Deidara

"I guess," he ventured, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall, "that not enough people get to experience art and true beauty firsthand." Isuki would have expected him to glare at Sasori, because that's what he usually did during his random monologues, but instead he was glaring at her dad. "After all, it is something to be shared, yeah."

"Well, you all can stay if you want, but we're going ahead," Leader stated as he and Konan disappeared.

"…So," her dad said, "that leaves us about a minute to prepare."

"I'm so excited," she mumbled. "My first battle!"

"Absolutely not," her mother denied.

"_What?_" she and her dad exclaimed simultaneously.

"If you died during this battle -"

"You would be no daughter of mine," her dad finished with a small smile. "You're staying, too. But don't get in the thick of things," he added.

"Yes!" she crowed, punching the air. Forget that her plan had been skewed, she was going to fight!

"Eris, Sasori, Deidara, Zetsu, Kisame, go meet our visitors outside. Kakuzu, Hidan, take up stations in pairs here and on the roof. Maddie, float around and check where you're needed."

Grumbling, but compliant, everyone sulked off

"Michiko, I want you -" her dad stopped, looking frantically around the room. Her mom wasn't there.

Isuki glanced around, probing the room with her mind. But she couldn't sense her.

"Do you want me to try and find her?" Isuki asked hesitantly.

"In a minute. Right now we're going to go outside and -"

And they heard the first scream.

* * *

Michiko was outside already, sulking.

Imagine, Itachi actually overturning one of her orders. Not even just a request, but an _order_. _Well… I-_

'Am being childish?' Jurag suggested. 'Come one, you baby. Go back in there and canoodle or whatever, and then come back out here. After all, he's only trying to be fair to Isuki.'

Michiko didn't even bother going through the wavering phase of the argument; she agreed. She was just still… sore. After last night she just wanted to feel like she had some control over something in her life.

She was turning to go back when she smelled something unfamiliar and turned. Standing up in the tree tops were about three squads of Leaf Village ninja, staring down at her analytically.

The first of the swarm had arrived.

* * *

Sasori plunged his extendable razor blade into the first unfamiliar face he saw and savored his scream, pumping him full of poison like a water balloon.

He didn't really have time to toy with each person there and kill them slowly, but that didn't mean poison got ruled out entirely. He just had to use more.

And he had enough.

Something blew past him and he turned just in time to see another get impaled by the icicles Eris was forming in her hands and launching like a higher grade of kunai. She grinned at him malevolently and continued, dropping them like flies as they poured out of the forest. Sasori went back to his own work, jabbing and decaying them all one by one, pulling himself out of their reach with the rotating blades mounted on his shoulders.

When he looked up again Eris was summoning thunderclouds.

* * *

Eris floated higher into the air and rained down the last of her icicles, skewering a few of the ninja that just. Kept. Coming.

She pivoted in midair and glanced around full-circle, staring down at the sea of enemies that swelled around the clearing. They say no man is an island, but everyone outside was, doing their level best to hold them back, alone. Sasori… Kisame… Zetsu… Deidara… _Michiko?_

They were all islands, with no one to watch their backs, and Eris realized that as resident Goddess of Chaos and Destruction it was her duty to help level the playing field; they were all skilled, of course, listed in the bingo book, but they were outnumbered at least a hundred to one.

She shot up even higher, until all she could see was a seething mass of tumultuous bodies, and she arched her back and stretched out her arms, screeching like a wounded banshee to the sky.

She smirked as the thunderclouds began to gather over her head, blackening and roiling heavily. As they charged, she flew up closer to them and stretched her wings to their full length, nearly twenty feet in width. The winds she manipulated formed the surface of the clouds, sculpting them.

"Avakod, I know you've always hated me like the others… but I have friends now… and someone to love… and I've… _changed_. Now, lend me your… _spear!_" she roared, pointing down violently and sending crisped bodies flying through the air when they were hit by the massive pointed bolt of lightning that speared down.

"Your… _arrows!_" A deadly rain of smaller bolts pierced and sizzled them.

"Your… _sword!_"

She drew her hands back and swept down with them, cutting a huge swath in their numbers with a bolt that dwarfed all others and sliced through them like a warm knife through butter.

* * *

Kisame looked up when lightning bolts started raining down, spotting Eris, barely visible, directing the mayhem like a mad composer. She was outlined against the black clouds that had become a demonic face, sharp-toothed mouth opened wide in a scream of victory, scowling eyes pierced by the intense light of the sun streaming through them.

He didn't have time to appreciate her power, because even with her help he was swamped. The numbers were near crippling, and every time he cut through them they pressed back in. They were almost mindless, stepping over the bodies of their fallen comrades as he sent them down into the black abyss. He suspected the more strategically important ranks were already inside.

He realized he probably would have been overwhelmed already if Maddie hadn't been helping him out. She ritually possessed and controlled the ones that got a little too close for comfort, forcing them to kill their own teammates.

He hardly even saw her, just her handiwork, like the way you see leaves rustling in the wind. Another mob loomed in and he cut them back perfunctorily.

He felt a stabbing pain in his left bicep and whipped around to find that some woman with snot green hair had actually managed to dig her kunai into him. Then her eyes flashed flat and dead for a moment before reanimating and winking at him. She turned, jerked the kunai out of his arm, and proceeded to horribly maim the man behind her.

Bleeding heavily, Kisame only just managed to swing his sword again, and again, ripping them apart with a monotonous note. He wasn't having fun anymore. It was like he had gone from messing around on the beach to fighting to keep his head above the water. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

He dragged SameHada around in a wide arc once more, and he could have sworn he felt a muscle rip.

He turned one last time and went straight through Maddie's face with his own, leaving a cold, deathly tingle on his lips.

And suddenly the lightning stopped, and Eris was floating over him, and she touched his arm, and she disappeared, and he stood up, and he flexed his arm, and he smirked, and he made some of them shrink back at the sight of his sharp teeth, and he hefted the SameHada again, and he brought it around in a crushing circle.

He thought maybe he heard the crunch of bones somewhere a ways off.

* * *

Zetsu twisted and closed around someone's head, ripping it off their shoulders and reaching out for someone else.

He didn't really understand why everyone thought he was slow; he just didn't feel the need to rush all that often. Now was one of those times that speed was integral to his survival.

He heard something like a turbulent gust of wind and paused for only a moment, when he saw something large and a sort of almost tan-ish, off-white-ish white lift off the ground.

* * *

Deidara was sure Itachi was trying to kill him.

He wasn't made for close combat. He could manage fine, he mused as he spun on his hands and kicked out, sending the ring closing in around him flying back into the people behind them. But he couldn't detonate anything at such a close range, and he couldn't just lob for fear of who he might hit. It was really the worst possible situation.

He had next to no upper body strength, and his hands were kept busy blocking and keeping his balance while he sent kicks flying at anyone that came close to him, not to mention the mental burn on his arm left over from Itachi's little stunt. Otherwise he would have made something to lift him off the ground and give him some distance to work with.

In a fit of desperation he shoved his left hand into the pouch at his waist and engulfed a mouthful of clay, chewing it thoroughly as he pulled it back out and continued the monotony of blocks when the ring closed back in.

Once he was done, a flurry of jabs from his feet sent them back again, and he molded the bird before coughing it up and tossing it up into the air. He had just enough time to make a hand sign, increase its size, and latch onto its foot as it lifted away and into the air before the crowd closed in.

Pulling himself up and onto its back, he looked around and blanched at the veritable sea of them choking the base.

He caught something, turned around, zoomed in on a bloom of fire to the east.

* * *

Michiko was struggling.

It was as if her reflexes had suddenly become… sluggish. The only thing she could chalk it up to was Deidara, making her flinch every time her mind wandered and inevitably rolled back to… _that_.

She winced again and spun, impaling someone with the spikes on her tail; she was even using the curse-mark and she wasn't up to snuff. One of the few benefits it had was making people a little more reluctant to approach her.

She could only hope Itachi was faring better than she was, wherever he was. If he or Isuki died because she wasn't there…

Michiko launched her mind off the subject, focusing back on the mob that surrounded her. Their numbers were ridiculous; they must have gathered ninja from every village or something! She still hadn't seen any familiar faces, though, of which she was glad.

But she could only be glad she could numb her senses when she needed to, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to move without being accompanied by excruciating pain. Someone - and she swore to herself she was going to find the bastard - kept throwing needles at her. They landed hits too often, along with everyone else. A few more and they would be piling on top of her.

Michiko racked her brains for some jutsu she could use to wipe them all out at once, but nothing came to mind. She was good with sucking people dry and stabbing them with her claws, but all her normal techniques focused on one-on-one combat. When this was over, if they all survived… no, _when_ they all survived, she would have to pick up something new from the others.

Frantically, Michiko blew a small fire at them.

She remembered Itachi teaching her that, back when they were kids. It frightened them back a ways, and it gave her the leeway to pump her wings and lift off the ground. There was something else he had taught her, too…

She grinned, remembering that time they had almost burned down the Uchiha Compound. Imitating his hand signs from that day, his posture, the flow of his chakra, was child's play to her.

With a whoosh and a crackling the flames billowed down from her mouth, rolling over the seething mass below and frying them all. It kept rolling, though, washing over everyone within 100 feet. The funny thing she smelled was that only their upper bodies had been withered and charred, as if it really had rolled _over_ them.

When she lifted up higher she heard a rush of wind, and Deidara was next her on one of his stupid flying rocks.

She could barely hear herself over the wind they both moved, but she tried anyway.

"WHERE IS ITACHI?" she asked slowly, assuming that if she found Itachi, she found Isuki, too.

"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING, YEAH! HE'S STILL INSIDE!"

"THANKS!" she yelled back, shooting past him and heading straight for the base. As she flew overhead she noticed the huge dead area she had created wasn't being filled; they weren't stepping up the second another one died. Or the smell of burning hair and flesh masked the newcomers' scents, but that wasn't likely.

She landed on the roof and pulled her wings back in, struggling against the very nature of the curse-mark.

The roof was already swarmed with them, though, and she could just make out Hidan and Kakuzu among the myriad scent trails laced around. They were back to back, and their close-range attacks seemed oddly effective in the tight space offered by the roof, especially Hidan's triple-bladed scythe.

She swept her tail briskly along the ground in front of her, knocking down most everyone in her path and killing a few when they landed on her spikes. She ignored everyone else as she pushed her way toward the two other immortals, feeling but at the same time not feeling when a couple people stabbed her, but she kept on going, shoving along. She took their weapons with her, because if they got through her scales they weren't coming back out anytime soon.

"WHERE IS ITACHI?" she demanded of them over the clash of weapons and voices vying to be heard, joining them briefly and forming a deadly triangle. She almost slipped once on the ichor that leaked from her wounds.

"HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW?" Hidan snapped, beating someone back with the rod of his scythe.

"MAIN HALL, I THINK!" Kakuzu growled, keeping the majority of them away with the smirk on his twisted face.

"THANKS!" she shouted back, pushing off again toward the stairs that led down into the base. The door seemed to be locked, but Michiko punched through it with the end of her tail and slogged through the splintered wood, gliding down. Something speared into her right side, but she moved down to the second floor. She turned and went down to the main floor, and brushed a path through the hallways, taking care of the pests that buzzed around uselessly.

She was beginning to recognize a few people, she thought. Like she thought she smelled Kakashi before her tail whipped at him, and maybe Ino, too. Sakura was unmistakable, along with Temari and Neji. After that she stopped looking around.

She focused in front of her and finally breached the main hall.

Itachi was in the middle of the room, which was crowded with them, but some sort of illusory shield held most of them back while he and Isuki picked off the few that made it to them.

Isuki was unharmed, it seemed; she wasn't bleeding. Itachi, though, was bleeding from multiple slashes on his arms and back; probably the result of blocking Isuki's hits, because usually no one could touch him.

Itachi wasn't using his katana, though. He was using purely physical blows, and that kept him at a disadvantage, though he still beat them all back. If he swung his blade too fast who knew when Isuki would get in the way...

Michiko dragged her feet across the ground and pulled his katana from its sheath on his back, whipping around and stabbing through three of them, pinning them to the wall. She jerked it out and swirled around with her tail and his sword, spinning in a whirl of death. But hits were still landing on her, and soon she couldn't move for lack of muscle that wasn't occupied by some form of steel.

She slowed gradually, and then she fell, and some of the points were driven deeper into her, and she couldn't even smell anymore.

She was so tired…

* * *

Itachi saw something out of the corner of his eye and dispatched the one he was dealing with, turning to find Michiko fallen.

She wasn't moving, and she looked like a pin cushion, and he pushed them all back with the shield, and he was next to her.

She cracked an eye open at him, very briefly, and grinned, ichor dripping down her face. "Itachi… I'm so tired…"

"Michiko, you'll be fine. Eris will help, and you'll be okay. Okay?" he insisted.

"I'm just so tired… I've never been this tired before, Itachi…"

"Shhh, you'll be fine," he whispered, brushing a strand of hair off her cheek. He could feel himself tearing up. "Just rest for a while, and you'll be okay…"

"I'm so tired… I'm going to sleep…"

"Not drift?" he asked softly, choking.

"No… I'm so tired…"

Itachi's lips twitched into a brief, small smile; she was so stubborn. He bent over and pressed his lips gently against hers, and he could have sworn she was trying to return the kiss.

He brought his arms around her and deepened it, oblivious to them all around, and it was bittersweet. Their embrace was hollow, their kiss tinged with farewell. He noticed a sudden salty taste in his mouth and realized belatedly that he was crying.

Isuki found it hard to be disgusted this time.

* * *

It was so... out of character. Her mom was so weak-looking, every kind of weapon you could name sticking out of her. Dad was bent over her and whispering, and he was...

_Crying?!_

She wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it herself; her dad was even less likely to cry than her mom. She knew something was wrong; she had seen both of her parents cry for the first time that day.

And then without warning her dad loomed up, and there were still tears streaming down his face. His eyes shifted, and they were still red, but the patterns had fused together and looked like a wheel with spokes made of scythes. They shot open, too wide to be natural, and he cast his glare over all of them, and wherever it fell, so did they.

They were set alight by a black fire, each and every one of them, and it burned until there was no trace of them left.

She ducked when he was turning to her side, afraid she could get clipped in the edge of his field of vision, and when she looked up he saw his eyes were bleeding, now, seeping blood down his face that mingled with the trail of tears left behind.

And then there were none.

The ground shook again, and she looked outside.

Not only was lightning raining down from the sky in droves, there were explosions going off every few seconds. She stepped out cautiously and found the clearing nearly empty. Only few of them remained, and everyone was closing in on them.

And with a slash it was done.

Her plan had been executed.

There had been some hitches, but nothing that couldn't be handled.

They would surely leave, and Eris would be left behind, and everything was perfect.

Except her mom was dead.

For real, this time.

* * *

Her dad hadn't spoken to her since mom died.

At first he had just drifted around aimlessly like some sort of ghost tethered to the place of its death. You could tell just by looking at him that he wasn't really alive anymore. Just by looking at his flat, lifeless eyes.

He had ignored her distantly at first, like he had ignored everyone those first few days, when they were setting up to leave. It was like he was purposefully making her wallow in guilt, the way he could disregard her presence without even trying. Like he forced her to notice that he had gone numb with pain.

She didn't think she would ever quite understand how he felt. Of course she had loved her mom, in this weird, compelled sort of way. But she had never had a strong connection. Even if her mom was the one she inherited her wings and thirst for blood from, they hadn't connected.

Her mom had only been there in the first place because her dad was there; she wasn't one of the murderous criminals. She pulled her weight, and threw it around sometimes, but if she could help it she didn't kill anyone. She didn't understand why Isuki would _want_ to hunt down and kill her own food.

Her dad, though; he had totally understood what she was talking about. That thrill that you've overpowered someone completely, knowing that even though they want to they can't do a thing to stop you. Closing in, hearing their death rattle. She had seen everything at some point as a passenger in her dad's mind, looking out through his eyes, hearing what he heard… And she wanted that for herself.

But now that her dad didn't speak to her, she spent most of her time with Sasori.

It was sort of funny; the Leader must have known something like what Isuki had planned was going to happen sometime, because when they moved bases it was to a place almost exactly like the old one except much closer to the Hidden Grass Village. Probably because no exceptional ninja ever come from there anyway.

So the base was identical, pretty much, except it had this unlived in feel. Which was good for her dad, because her mom had never been here, so there shouldn't have been that many memories at all. He still didn't like spending time in the room that was identical to his old one; he spent the majority of his time sitting on the roof, staring off into space.

Isuki would hate to find out what would happen if he discovered it was all her fault mom had died.

So Sasori's room was exactly the same, except Eris wasn't there, which made it even more perfect. They just sort of… talked. Yeah. A lot. She could tell he was still wrung out about Eris, but he would get over it eventually.

Besides, when they weren't talking about some new stibine or something he was developing, or the last thing she had killed, they just talked. About anything.

A couple times her mom had cropped up out of nowhere, as if haunting her conversations, but whenever she did Isuki "managed" to put on her best brave front, and Sasori always "saw through it", and he was a surprisingly good comforter. And not in the blanket sense of the word.

Sometimes they had some serious clinching involved, but nothing more, generally because both of them, she thought, were more than a little worried about her dad.

Now that mom was gone, he ignored the rest of the world and sat absorbed in his own private universe of grief-stricken anguish. And if and when he ever came out of it he would undoubtedly be, like, über rip-snarl-growl overprotective of her. Not only because, for one, she was his daughter, but also because he no longer had mom to love.

She had gotten little tastes from Sasori, but she was afraid her dad was going to drown her. She had been designed to catch the overflow of the affection he had always poured on mom, but once he snapped out of his funk she was sure he was going to start dumping it all on her. She could only hope he wouldn't turn out like Deidara and start telling how she was like a replica of her mom and stuff and not even treat her like a child anymore.

Some people say that losing the one you love is like losing your right arm. She could tell by the way he stood, the sound of his silence, but mostly in his eyes, that it was like his_ soul _had been cut out by some half-bit surgeon; there was no "right arm" about it.

And the one time he had said anything, anything at all, was in response to a remark that could have been considered an attempt at comforting if it hadn't come from Deidara. Maybe it was supposed to be anyway, but the tone of his voice had just had something rub-it-in about it.

He had said, "You know, they say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, yeah."

And her dad had given him this look. There was no way to describe it, because there was too much in it. But he had just turned, and given him said overwhelming look and whispered a broken response.

"Try it."

* * *

_Man, this makes me feel so bad for Itachi! I'm such a mean person..._

_BTW, next section Isuki is 16, hooray..._


	10. Reputation

_Well, here is the end of The Isuki Chronicles... It makes me sad, but at the same time, it was necessary._

* * *

Reputation

She hadn't meant to say anything at first

She hadn't meant to say anything at first. It had just… slipped out, straight from her lips to his.

It had started simply enough…

"I don't really look _that_ much like my mom, do I?"

"Yes, you do."

"Oh, great; you're not gonna be like Deidara was and start telling me that all the time, are you?"

"Of course not. Although I have to admit your _appearance_ reminds me of her, but when I look at you I see you, not her. I never really liked her, anyway; it was like she always _needed_ someone. It was ridiculous."

"Really?"

"Except for the eyes. Just be glad you got your father's eyes."

"I know. Mom's eyes were pretty creepy. I never got a full explanation for it, either. She'd always say she'd tell me later, and here I am, later, except she's not here anymore. And she never told me how _I_ happened, come to think of it! Dad won't tell me anything, either, like he wants to forget her entirely or something. Like, 'poof', she's gone."

"At last you don't see _him_ telling you that you look like your mom."

"That's cheating; he can't even _see_ me."

"True. But at least you had _me_ to induct you into that other, mystical world."

"What-? Oh, yeah. Yeah."

"You sound like Deidara."

"That's not funny; now that he's dead and gone I want him to _stay_ that way. Stop reminding me!"

"And _you_ don't sound like your father at _all_…"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, it's not like you're trying to forget about Deidara after he's only been gone for a few weeks. At least Itachi waited about a year before going completely numb."

"Yeah, but I didn't _love_ Deidara. I still don't."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"Gods, you're so stiff."

"You're digging yourself a hole, you know."

"Oh, like that's going to help me. You know, just shut up; I don't feel like talking to you anymore."

"Fine. You swear you won't mind?"

"Mind wha-?"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…Won't mind _that_."

"Um, no, I-I don't mind…"

"Good. Now shut up for a bit."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…It was my fault, you know…"

"…"

"…"

"…What?"

"…"

"…"

"…I told where the base was, so we'd have to leave… And then Eris would get left behind, and she wouldn't be glaring at me all the time…"

"…"

"…"

"…What?"

"…"

"…"

"It was my fault they found the base… And my fault my mom died… And my fault you came and Eris stayed…"

"…"

"…"

"…Really."

* * *

Isuki glared bitterly down at Sasori, trying to struggle free of the stupid razor thingy cord that came out of where his stupid stomach was supposed to be and kept her stupid arms pinned to her stupid body.

"You could at least let me walk," she vied. "You don't have to keep me dangling up here."

"No," he responded curtly, not even looking up at her as he strode purposefully toward the meeting hall. "Knowing you you'll try something, and I would rather not have to deal with that kind of annoyance right now."

Isuki was beginning to panic. _Dammit why did I say anything?! Aaargh, idiot, idiot, idiot! Stupid, why'd you go and open your mouth… _Besides_ that? Great, this is just _perfect_… Stupid damned fucking mouth _why…?!

"You know, I didn't really mean that. I just wanted to see how you'd react, and look; it livened you up a little, just like I'd hoped!"

"Nice try, you manipulative little wench."

Isuki was resigned to waiting impatiently and sighing in frustration until the others showed up in the meeting hall. After they all filtered in, Sasori dropped her unceremoniously in the middle of the ring they formed, pulling back his line with a slight whir and a flick of poison. A droplet landed on her cheek, and it burned like dry ice until she wiped it off and glared at him again, sticking out her tongue.

"Sasori," Leader asked blandly, making an all-encompassing hand gesture, "what is… this?"

Isuki dropped her eyebrows and glared at him, too, hardly daring to believe that she was being ignored for fear of what she might end up doing. Then again, maybe she'd finally end up going feral like her mom and freeze in time, and she'd last forever… like Sasori… Because _beautiful_ things last _forever_.

"Well, Sir, I have discovered something very disconcerting."

"Aw, will you cut the crap and just tell us what the fuck you're talking about?"

Isuki looked up at him, still spread out on the ground, propped up on one elbow. She looked up at the one who had once told her a story about monsters, then round the circle. The empty spot where six years ago someone had walked into the wrong room… The people who had raised her; fed her, played with her, or in some cases merely tolerated being played with.

"Well…"

But Sasori would ruin it. He would tell them how they had all been her playthings, her toys, the figures she moved across the chessboard with an invisible hand. He didn't really care what they would do to her when they found out. He didn't really care about her at all. He never had, had he? He never would care, about anything, except for the cheap imitation of human obsession he harbored for his stupid puppets, because his puppets would last forever. So she wanted to get mad, get angry, get pissed, because then she could go feral and last forever, and he would care.

She would _make_ him care.

"Isuki is the reason for that attack a few years back, back when Michiko died."

"…W-…_What?_"

She glanced up again and saw her dad's expression. At least he didn't physically wince this time, just a twitch in his right eye. The right of the sightless pair that were drains for an unfathomable agony, pouring out their pain on anyone who fell under their hawkish gaze.

"Do you have any idea why?" Leader didn't ask Isuki if it was true; obviously her trustworthiness had plummeted. They talked about her like she wasn't there, like they didn't even care to hear her side of it, her motive.

But he wouldn't have understood! He never would have understood! She had killed her own mother, and in doing so killed him. And with him went that secret, hidden recess of kindness and understanding, and all hope of him ever forgiving her. Everything had just drained out of him after that until nothing was left but the ghost of person, a replica in flesh and blood of the father that had thrived before.

"Not really, Sir. If you ask me I think she's just delirious and a tad unstable."

Isuki broke when she heard that, heard him say that about her. Her head drooped, then snapped back up with an eerie twisting sound.

"You liar!" she screamed, pulling herself quickly to her feet and bracing as if for attack, but instead she stood their angled slightly, screeching at him. She had cracked, and she just leaked out through the small break, but the pressure kept building up and roiling inside her until it smashed through and gushed out of her in a wild, raging torrent.

"You never told me that! You never told me what you thought of me, not now or ever before! You never cared enough to assign me characteristics, but I did it for you! I had no idea what it was but I wanted to be with you and have you there and touch you, have you hold me and feel you in and all around me all the time and I didn't know why! I just wanted it but Eris was always there hovering and making sure nothing happened and glaring at me like I was the spawn of demons! I had to do it so we would move and she would have to stay so I could have you, but you still didn't care! Granted I didn't know the difference but I felt it in the way you touched me you never really cared about _me!_ It's not my fault my mom got killed, it's not!" She was crying by this point, but they were tears of rage, not sorrow. Or at least she managed to tell herself that. "I just wanted you to love me!..."

She collapsed again and huddled on the floor, but only because she wanted to. Someone touched her shoulder, but she jerked away and shot to her feet again. She didn't see who it was but she didn't care, she screamed at him anyway. "You never cared because I wouldn't last forever like your stupid perfect puppets and your stupid perfect you! They're not going to last forever, though! None of them! I will, but none of you will last forever!"

Isuki shot off and tore out through the window, ripping shredded tears into her clothes and skin, pulling out her wings. None of them would last, but she would. She could fly, but none of them could. Smirking, she flew up high and built up her chakra for something she had made herself. She had stolen inspiration from Deidara and her dad, but it was hers. She arched backwards and sucked in an impossibly deep breath and-

Fire exploded from her mouth. It couldn't be contained in a steady, regulated stream and burst loose like a starved beast ripping through the bars of its cage, falling on the base and everyone in it, devouring it as she guided it to the points most easily digested to help feed its growth. That was something her father had never understood, or Deidara, for that matter. Not completely anyway, but she had taken care of him before he figured it out. You couldn't use fire like a weapon, couldn't force it and then leave it to die.

You had to love the fire, nurture it like a child while it grew a more independent mind while you told it gently what to do until it gained enough force to do whatever it saw fit. Isuki loved the fire, and the power it gave her, and the natural ability she had for fanning its conquering maw.

She flapped down and looked in. The flames were so thick she couldn't see anything, but no human movement made itself evident. Grinning, she turned to go and was suddenly struck by a thought:

What the hells was she supposed to do now? Her life had revolved around the base and the people in it… and the puppet in it…

Isuki lingered a little by the window, watching her fire-spawn eat the base whole.

And someone landed heavily on her back, weighing her down until she slammed into the ground. A hard, unyielding hand ground her face into the grass and dirt, but allowed her just enough leeway to glance out of the corner of her eye to see Kisame drowning her fire, her baby. She gurgled a scream past the turf filling her mouth and choked it out when she was released, but she couldn't move her hands; they were forced behind her back and held there from a distance by Sasori's wirey thingy, like she was something dangerous or some crap like that.

She looked up at them through the mussed up curtain of her hair, willing them all to die where they stood. They had no idea, would never understand.

"Isuki, you're a liability," Leader's voice cut in, cold and clear as you like. "You're more unstable than a boulder on a pin." He didn't say anything else, just jerked his head toward her, like a signal.

She saw something move out of the corner of her eyes, like a little swish, and her field of vision flicked over to one side to encompass it. Isuki saw him just ceasing to lean wearily on his katana and heft it experimentally. She looked up at him, her mouth a hard line and pleading in her eyes, but she got blasted by the sheer miserable loathing that poured out of his.

* * *

It was sort of funny because even though no one on the outside really knew, it still bolstered his reputation.

Even after Michiko had died and he had gone almost completely catatonic, it still made people mutter and stories got told, somehow, like the news could fly. It made people tell their children stories at night: "Be good or else…"

Even if he lost a little face, becoming the kind of man who could love and be loved, or have a child, that all got washed away.

Because who wouldn't harbor at least some fear of a man who could execute his own daughter without a second thought?


	11. Regrets

_Well, it's been a little while, but all in all I think this is a good way to end this Chronicle: _this _is where Isuki truly dies. And of course I won't mark it completed (yet) because undoubtedly there will be more ideas popping into my head for unfullfilled age gaps in the series. So, until then, goodbye and enjoy! _

* * *

Regrets

Itachi stared at the wall.

That is, he stared at where he knew it was. He couldn't really see it, but then, he didn't need to. He didn't need to see the bed he was sitting on to know it was there.

He didn't do much. He hadn't for some time now. He wandered occasionally, if he felt up to it. He hardly had a cohesive thought that didn't hurt.

He would have been free if it weren't for Sasori, always reminding him to eat. And he couldn't very well have turned the suggestion down after it was brought up: that would have made him look suicidal. And maybe he was – but nobody else needed to know that.

_"Suicide is insanity!"_

No, that didn't fit with the others. It was Michiko's voice, but she hadn't said that. That had been Junten. Besides, he was most likely insane as well, so it fit. Insane. Senseless. Crazy. Mad. Disarrayed. Unruly, tumultuous, confused disordered_chaotic_.

That was why Sasori still had the heart to be cruel – he was bitter, but he had hope if he even understood the concept. Eris was still out there, somewhere, eternal. Michiko was – … Isuki was – … Dead. Both of them.

How had he managed to kill her? Now he could hardly stomach the thought. Gone.

It had been so easy.

He hadn't been himself.

He had been blaming himself for Michiko. If Isuki hadn't been there, if he had paid more attention, if he had prepared Isuki more, if he had been faster, if hadn't let Michiko out of his sight, if he had locked her in a closet, if he hadn't let her fight…

And then to discover that the onus rested on Isuki. To be able to shift the blame, transfer all the crushing guilt, had made everything so easy. To redirect the self-loathing… _Kill my daughter? Why, of course, Sir, is there anything else you need?_

Gods, how stupid! If someone else had killed her, maybe he could have lived with that. Maybe.

No, he had killed her himself, not even thinking.

To be able to shift the blame, transfer all the crushing guilt, had made everything so easy. To redirect the self-loathing…

He hadn't been himself.

It had been so easy.

Gone.

"Um, hi?"

He started. A new voice. New voice, new voice new _female_ voice, interrupting interrupting him. He glared up at it. It gave off a strong smell of water. Kisame would be interested.

"Um, Sir?"

Why did it insist on speaking? Why couldn't it just stand there in silence? Better, why didn't it leave him alone?

"Itachi."

"Oh. I was just wondering – see, I couldn't find The Leader, and you seem to be the next best thing – and –"

"Who?"

"Excuse me?"

"Told you that?" He saw no point in killing her. No one else had, so either she was supposed to be here or she was stealthy enough that he probably wouldn't be able to take care of her.

It did his mind better to go with the first option.

"Um, I don't really know. I just got here, so I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do. It was someone creepy."

He snorted. That narrowed it down to about everyone in the base.

"What was that for?"

He waved it off, insisting, "Who?"

"Well, I don't know anyone, so…" she trailed off unexpectedly. "You… You can't see me, can you?"

He didn't wince. He had fixed that – otherwise he would have winced every time he had a painful thought. Though it did mean that instead of wincing his arms tightened. It was just trading one reaction for another. After a while that would come to have a negative connotation and he'd need to switch again.

He grunted his assent.

"Oh. Well… I was just wondering, is it okay to have pets?"

_"Daddy, Daddy! Look what I found!"_

"No."

"Not even fish? I mean, it's not like they get in the way or anything."

_"Can I keep it?"_

"…Fish are okay. Don't advertise their presence."

"Well, it's not like I can exactly take them on walks and show them off or anything, you know. Fish can really tie you down."

He would have to share that with Maddie, just to know that even if he couldn't see it she would be translucently blushing. Only, he hadn't noticed her around for a while. Why waste energy looking for her? Chances were she wouldn't want to talk to him anyway.

"Don't talk to people."

"What? No one?"

_"What do you want me to do, glue myself to you at the hip and talk to no one else for the rest of my life?"_

"No. No one enjoys talking." He paused for a moment, amended that statement. "Deidara and Kisame like to talk."

"But… Aren't I his replacement?"

Replacement? What was she talking about? In fact, why was she even talking to him? Why was he talking to _her? _He had managed a solitary status until now.

…_Oh, that's right..._

Kisame had died a while ago.

Well, that would explain why Maddie wasn't around anymore.

"Yes."

Something was sinking in…

Wait…

…New partner?

Then who had collected her? Why wasn't he informed?

He asked her.

"Um… I think it was like… Hidan and… Aidaijou…? Or something like that…"

Oh. Hidan had been recovered some time ago, but his new partner turned out to be as insane as Kakuzu was miserly. From what he gathered, the boy had hair like a watermelon gone nova and a necklace that ate people or something of the like. Not to mention the fact that he had to be constantly reminded why he was even there in the first place.

Who _forgot_ that they enjoyed killing people? What kind of sick freak forgets _that?_

"_You can't call people insane when _you_ have no serious moral issues with killing people, Itachi. It just isn't fair."_

A small grin manifested, followed by an even smaller whisper. "It isn't, is it?"

"What?"

He had almost forgotten she was there. That couldn't happen again.

"Just… nothing. Nothing."

"Oh. Okay. Well, thanks. I guess I'll see you… tomorrow?" Her footsteps indicated she was turning to leave, but then they stopped and returned, closer than before. "Incidentally, do you know much about Hidan?"

"It's a small base," he murmured, taking several steps closer. "Everyone suffers some degree of familiarity."

"Oh. Well, I'll just be going then. Thanks anyway, though."

"We have a mission tomorrow. We need to… discuss a few things with one of the feudal lords."

"Are you kidding? Already? I'm not going to get any sleep…"

"I could go without you."

"No, no, that's okay, I'll go. I suppose I should be getting used to this… If I accidentally end up sleeping in you won't leave without me, right?"

"_Don't go away again."_

"Of course not."

"_Don't leave me alone with Deidara."_

"Never, Michiko. Never again."

"Um, my name is Atogama."

He reached out to her, pulled her closer. "There's no need for alibis on this one."

"_There's always a need to be safe, because it's that one time you're unprepared that everything crumbles down around you. You should know that by know."_

"Stubborn," he grumbled with a chuckle, shoving his mouth against hers.

Oh, it had been too long. The wonderful softness, yielding lips, welcoming tongue, guiding hands…

Far too long.

* * *

Itachi woke up to the strangely unfamiliar warmth of a body nestled against his.

Crapshitdammit what the _hells_ was this?

Michiko was cold.

Not warm.

Hair, a head, resting on his clavicle.

Fingers wrapped snugly around his wrist.

Warmth.

Dammit.

He moved cautiously, painstakingly slowly, trying to escape this with as little fuss as possible. This was not right. He loved Michiko. Michiko was cold. Michiko was dead. This was not Michiko. He did not love _this_.

This stirred slightly, shifting in its sleep and hugging his arm.

Dammit.

This yawned. Michiko didn't yawn. Michiko didn't breathe. Michiko was dead. This was not Michiko.

"That was a_ma_zing," it mumbled, shifting again. A pair of lips found his and he shivered. But this was not cold. He shivered at the contact. Michiko was not warm. Michiko was dead. This was not Michiko.

With this awake he could abandon caution and shut the bathroom door behind him. There had been no going from Point A to Point B, he was just _there_. He sunk to the floor and gripped his knees.

Michiko would kill him for this.

No, Michiko was dead. He had killed her. No, no, Isuki had killed her. He had killed Isuki. Killed dead.

"_Daddy?"_

Gone.

He heard footsteps in his room, wandering, aimless, and then an almost undetectable scraping sound. Almost like that of a downturned picture frame being lifted up curiously.

"…Is this your family?" it inquired.

He winced. No tightening muscles, just a violent twitch. "Sort of."

"Oh? Where are they?"

"Dead," he choked, burying his face in his arms, hiding from himself.

"Oh. I'm sorry. They were very beautiful."

_Don't remind me,_ he whimpered. "It wasn't my fault."

"What?" it asked from the other side of the door.

This wasn't right.

He would have to fix this.

* * *

Atogama was puzzled, but willing to play along.

Itachi was odd, but interesting. Being odd was usually what made people interesting.

"Come with me," he'd said. "I want to show you something."

"What about the mission?" she'd asked.

"It isn't until later," he'd replied.

"But you said we had a mission in the morning!" she'd exclaimed.

"No, _I_ said we had a mission 'tomorrow'," he'd explained with thinning patience. "You assumed we'd be leaving early."

She'd had no response to that.

"So, are you coming or not?" he'd demanded with a thinly veiled smirk.

And here she was.

"Bring your gear," he'd added, "we'll be leaving from there."

So she had. And here she was. Many hours later. Walking. In a forest. With Itachi.

Well, "with" was overstating it. Not only was it nearly impossible to keep up with him, whenever she _did_ pull alongside him she got this weird feeling she wasn't supposed to be there and had no idea what to do next, so she trailed behind him with little direction.

Much like last night.

She could never have matched him move for move, almost like he was following some sort of internal routine she didn't know. Instead of moving with him she'd been left to follow cues and have everything turn out okay.

And it had.

Then there had been this morning, when he had disappeared. Otherwise she might not have noticed what she hadn't the previous night: a picture frame resting face down on a desk, as if it held something unwelcome. Something better left unseen.

And she had caught a glimpse of the three most beautiful people she had ever seen. And so happy, too.

A thought had struck her, that maybe she had just slept with someone she shouldn't have. But then he'd said they were dead.

Atogama had been vaguely surprised when the Akatsuki had shown up. She had always thought she had too many residual moral values to be a good criminal, but apparently no one else thought that.

She was instinctively polite, somewhat kind, but worst of all she still held on to some childish fantasy of _love_.

That was why she had been struck by Hidan. He had such a smooth presentation; her mind had jumped to possible futures.

Itachi was much more interesting. She looked forward to spending time with him and getting to know him more every day. And every night.

"Here," he stated suddenly, catching her off guard.

A huge cliff loomed above them. Had she really not noticed the steep decline?

"What is it?"

"This way."

She wondered what was so important about the bottom of a ravine until they stopped next to a little glowing sphere stuck in a ditch. Something brownish grey scuttled around inside it.

"That's the Goddess of The Hunt," he told her offhandedly. Then he picked up again.

She was reluctant to follow, listening curiously to the enraged chittering emanating from the orb. "Really?"

Itachi nodded. "She cropped up about 12 years or so ago, near the old base."

"Oh."

She was wondering if there was anything more he could possibly have to show her at the bottom of a ravine when something loomed up in front of her. It was a towering, black-fringed hole in the cliff wall. An erratic breeze swept in and out of its depth, almost as if some huge monster lay dormant inside, breathing.

Following, ever following, they trekked inward until she could hardly see the light at the entrance of the cavern. She squinted over her shoulder, satisfied that there was still a pinpoint of light behind her.

"What was your name again?"

Atogama pivoted, hurt. Why didn't he remember her name? _She_ remembered _his_. "Um, it's Atogama, Itachi."

"Right, right." He had his hands behind his back. "I have something for you. I think you'll like it."

Just the way he said it gave her a chill. "What is it?" she asked, drifting closer.

"Come here."

She complied, more curious than ever. In the dark it didn't even seem to matter that he couldn't see her, because she could hardly see him either.

Her mouth opened to ask him again and her vision exploded into white courtesy of the sharp, unimaginable pain in the left side of her head.

* * *

Atogama blinked carefully.

_Drip… Drip... Drip... Drip..._

Her vision muzzed back into something that showed vaguely recognizable shapes, brought back by an insistent dripping sound above her and an equally insistent pulse in her head. She didn't remember a big cave being a wet one, but then, she didn't remember much right now.

And wouldn't water drip down to the floor? It sounded like it was hitting the ceiling.

She tried to get her bearings and found she couldn't move her hands. Panicked, she looked down at them and found it took strange effort to bend her neck over.

_Drip drip drip drip._

They were bound together. Some sort of thin rope wrapped casually around them over and over and over again. Like a cocoon of rope. One miniscule strand extended from the lump of fiber and traveled down to her feet, wound around them again as skillfully as a spider with silk, and then went on down in a taut line toward the floor and… disappeared into the darkness?

She shifted her shoulders.

_Dripdripdripdrip._

She drifted from side to side, unable to control her movement. When she tilted her head back she could see little dark droplets entering her field of vision and then hitting the ceiling. They pooled there.

Unless someone had rewritten gravity, something was wrong here.

Water should fall down. It should fall…

Oh.

So she was upside-down, then.

What now?

Her right wrist itched.

Perfect timing.

She curled up and bent her elbows up – no, down – no – whatever. Her head bumped the rope, so she went down from there and rubbed the damned itch with her head. When she touched the rope her skin burned tenderly, but she could take it. She was conditioned to pain. Pain was merely a message sent by the body to the brain. There were little assassin-like things in her that ambushed the messenger before it could get to her brain.

_Drip… Drip… Drip… Drip…_

Exhausted, she let go of her muscle control and fell back perpendicular to the ground, staring at the floor. Her wrist started to itch again.

When she glared at it mutinously her grimace turned to a frown of confusion.

It was covered in blood.

She shook her head, sure she was imagining it.

_DriPlerLopIp DripleIpOp_

She glanced up at the floor again. Dark liquid was now splattered randomly across the rock…

Oh.

So it was blood.

It was _her _blood.

She was bleeding. From the side of her head. Where there had been a small explosion of agony earlier.

"Are you familiar with the concept of a 'natural high'?"

She started and twisted around to no avail, merely swinging violently back into place.

Her head pounded. "No," she whimpered, her own voice drowned out by the noise in her head.

"Most people have to turn to drugs, or maybe even alcohol to reach a high. It doesn't ease their pain, just makes them forget that in another, distant world they are suffering. Some higher beings can reach a natural high through severe concentration. Some reach it through un-concentration. Some implement relaxing poses and deep breathing. And some develop a need to kill as simple as their need to breathe."

She shivered.

_Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip._

He had _hit her_. With what? She was bleeding. Probably a rock. Why? What had she done?

"These people are commonly known as sadists. The pinnacle of their world is causing you pain. In order to do this in a world of justice they must be hellishly organized. They are bereft of all normal human emotions, including feelings of remorse, rage, and even love. They are incapable of forming relationships of any kind with the people around them. They are naturally meticulous, intelligent, and above all, methodical. The worst are the sexual sadists, who get off on the brutal torture of others."

_Oh gods, why me?_ she demanded helplessly, writhing. What had she done to deserve this? Nothing. She wasn't even a proper criminal. Only her second day here and she was going to die…

"But let's move away from such dark topics." Something brushed against her arm.

"Don't," she mewled, cringing away from his touch. "Leave me alone."

_Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip._

"I plan on it."

Her throat constricted. What? Alone? She would _die_ here. She would starve slowly, or maybe she'd die of thirst. Or maybe lack of sleep. Maybe all the blood would rush to her head and she wouldn't be conscious when she died. No one would know – no one but Itachi.

"Sasori," he called softly.

Wasn't that one of the other members? Wait, wasn't that the one who told her where to find her new partner? Itachi? The one who was going to kill her?

Or worse?

Her attention was diverted by a soft padding sound mixed with the clacking of something firm repeatedly hitting stone.

The shadows around her expelled something huge and white and… fluffy? It looked like a cat, but it had wings, so that couldn't be right. Black wings, all feathery and soft looking. At that moment she wanted nothing more than to touch them. But it had sleek horns, too, also black. It prowled up to her and stretched its neck out to examine her with eerily bright eyes. They were blue orbs glowing in the near darkness, slitted evilly.

It stared at her with severe concentration.

Without warning it trotted off and leaned over, prodding Itachi's hand with its nose. Its tail flicked against her arm and she marveled at its wonderful softness.

Her mind needed something to focus on other than her impending death.

"This is Sasori," he informed her crisply, running a hand absently along the creature's soft foreleg. "He is all that's left of Isuki."

Was that supposed to mean something to her? She tried to remember, but the throbbing in her wound was like a door that closed her off from the rest of her mind. There was one part left open to her that said, "YOU ARE GOING TO DIE."

It was very insistent.

Sasori crouched as if to pounce and shot darting glances at her, turning to Itachi.

"Yes, I brought you something."

Her throat threatened to close again.

She was going to die. Her eyes screwed shut without her telling them to and her arms were unable to reach their instinctive protection position, leaving her feeling vulnerable and helpless.

Funny, because that's exactly what she was. Vulnerable and helpless.

About to die.

Something wet scraped up her arm. Her eyes shot open in time to see the cat-thing's tongue slip back into its mouth. It eyed her curiously. It seemed to have intelligence – ruthless intelligence.

She avoided its gaze and glanced at her arm, eyes widening when she saw it was slick with a thin layer of blood.

"_Cats have barbed tongues," _her mother had told her once. _"That's why the little ones feel like sandpaper. The big ones have much bigger barbs, Atagoma. They use them to lick flesh clean off bones."_

She was going to die. Slowly. This was the biggest cat she had ever seen, and its tongue felt like a surgical grade bone saw.

She was going to be eaten alive.

No, she couldn't. She couldn't actually _die_. That happened to other people. She made that happen to other people. She was a deliverer, not a victim.

She couldn't die… because…

"What about the mission?" she croaked a tad too hopefully. "We have a mission."

"You weren't skilled enough. Even though it wasn't that dangerous, a bodyguard got a lucky shot. You were burned to destroy evidence. No one was terribly surprised that you didn't survive. You were, after all, just a girl."

She sagged at his use of the past tense.

He scratched at Sasori's shoulder with cold detachment. "I'll stop by on my way back in a few days to see how far along you are."

"Why waste your time?" she muttered bitterly, choking back a sob. "I'll be dead by then." _I hope_.

His head inclined slightly. "I wasn't talking to you."

Bile started to rise in her throat, and gravity made it nearly impossible to keep down – or up, or whatever. It stung in her nose, gagging her.

The side of Sasori's face rubbed against her arm and he purred.

Now, apart from him, she was alone.

Sasori opened his mouth to lick her again and she swatted at him with her cocoon-rope hands. He hissed, hackles rising as he exposed sharp, yellowed fangs. Fairly determined not to be eaten, she sneezed at him.

A chunk of muscle was exposed under the fold of flesh he had ripped up with his return bite.

She tried her best to tilt her head back parallel with the ground, but the vomit still burned her nose as it fell from her mouth.

A pinpoint of white centered her vision, then grew to encompass her eyes and eventually her consciousness.

* * *

Itachi left, feeling rather cleansed, and everything was good.

He trekked to the mission.

He learned the Lord inside and out.

He carried out the mission.

He did, as a point of honor, visit Sasori's lair on his way back. If not that would have meant he had lied, and he didn't want something like that on his conscience.

That girl was limp, rotating slowly on her rope. Without reason Sasori stood up and stalked over to the corpse suspended from the ceiling, sitting down with a plop of finality next to it and growling.

"I'm not here to take it away," he soothed. "Just checking something."

He almost felt the kitty's glare, but it made no move to stop him.

"Good kitty."

Itachi took a knee and waited for the girl to make a full circle and face him, spreading the fingers of one hand and placing so it just brushed against her. He felt large chunks of muscles missing and drying trickles of blood that conflicted with the still warm skin accompanied by a small sound like that of loose tendons trailing on the ground.

His grip tightened on her shirt when she faced him, and soon he had found her face, her eyes. He pulled one of her eyelids down delicately with his thumb. No, unseeing.

Then she was dead.

Pity. She had felt rather pretty.

He had expected more from her. After all, it had only been two days. She should have lasted at least another day or two. Anything beyond that and she was also beyond recovery.

Standing up to leave, he ran his hand along the rope. He would have to come back and get it – it was a good rope. It made a faint humming sound when he plucked it that also got the girl spinning again.

Another faint sound…

A croak of breath. "…Hiiiiid…"

He listened, head cocked to one side.

"…Hiiiiiiiiiiiid…aaaag…iiiiiiiiiii… Heeeeeeeepp…eeeeeeeee…"

So the girl was still alive after all. Well, far be it from him to save her. Obviously she had displeased someone, or she wouldn't have gotten herself into this mess. Far be it from him to interfere with justice.

Far be it from him.

* * *

"Itachi, where is your partner?"

"Hm?"

"Atogama. The girl. Where is she? …Did you finish the mission?"

"Of course."

"Then where is she?"

"_She _did _not_ complete the mission."

"…She _died?_ That mission was _easy!_"

"Bodyguard got lucky. Burned her to get rid of evidence."

"…I see. …Wait, come here. …Why don't you smell anything like smoke or charred flesh or burning hair? …_Well?_"

"…"

"_Itachi._"

"…Sir Leader, do you remember Sasori?"

"What? He's right – … Well, he's here somewhere."

"The kitty."

"…The… cat? The little freak thing with wings?"

"Yes."

"What about it?"

"_He_ lives somewhere near the old base. He has a lair, but with Eris there I'm sure he doesn't have much pick among the forest creatures. He's very hungry all the time."

"What does that have to do with anything? …No. No, you didn't_._"

Itachi laughed.

* * *

Itachi did not enjoy being made to wait.

Everyone else had been deployed to go find that girl. Everyone but Aidaijou, that is. They were probably worried that if he found her he'd kill her. Good of them, too. No one wanted a solitary murderer looking for a half-dead girl. They need not have looked if they had elected to take him with them.

But _no_, _they_ wanted him to stay _behind_. Some ludicrous reason or other, who knew what. Leader had given him a telling look when he didn't just _say_ where the girl was. Indeed, it had told him, "I am… _displeased_." And when Leader used politely threatening looks, something was going to happen. Most likely something unpleasant.

As if it was his choice. He couldn't just _say_ where it was. They didn't understand the location the way he did. It wasn't something that could be easily communicated. Value and emotional attachment were concepts foreign to the others.

And of course, the freak had been left to make sure he didn't try to leave. As if he would want to leave.

Although he had to admit he was fairly curious as to whether they would find her alive or not.

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

"Hey, what are you smiling about?"

Itachi sighed inwardly. "Nothing."

"Hey, hey," the freak added, almost earnestly, voice coming closer, "can you tell me why I'm here?"

He turned away; this was just _sad_.

"No, seriously, could you help me out here?" The voice sounded as if someone had taken sandpaper to the inside of its owner's throat.

"You enjoy the suffering of others. Like everyone else."

"…Oh, yeah! That was it!" Itachi heard a grin of relief. "Hey, hey," freak added, "do you want to see my necklace?"

Itachi did not see why he could not be left alone now that he had grudgingly assisted the pathetic fool. He was spent. Done. Social interactions were an effort. He was running on sarcasm.

"Oh, wow, I'd love to, but I can't."

"Why not? It's not like you have anything better to do. …Wait, you're that blind guy, aren't you?"

He grunted.

"Sick. Hey, if you're blind, why are you still here? You must be damn near useless by now."

He stiffened. This had gone on way too long. "Think. I have survived a very long time in an occupation in which many people with perfect vision have been killed."

That shut the freak up.

He sat in silence, hatefully waiting for them to return.

Finally, an eternity later, the sound of an opening door. He almost stood up, then decided better of it and settled for sitting up a little straighter.

"Well, she's alive if that's what you're wondering, although it'll take ages to get her back to health," Leader informed him crisply.

He was genuinely surprised.

"By the way, I would be very appreciative if you did _not_ try to kill the new members. They're very valuable and almost impossible to replace."

Almost impossible to replace replacements? Oh, the irony. Leader seemed to have noticed as well, for he did not expound on that statement.

There followed the uneven steps of someone dragging something and the quiet scraping of someone whose feet are being dragged across the ground.

He inclined his head. "What was so special about her, anyway? She had no power. She was weak."

"Present tense, Itachi, let's stick to the present tense. She doesn't have offensive power."

"Defensive, then."

"No. So I guess it's good that it's _this_ one you tried to kill. …Regeneration."

Shit, was he serious? Regeneration? What a cheap shot. "Without skill she's still useless. Want to see if she can regenerate her head?"

"Not interested: she's an asset. And as long you fail to see her as one you are a liability we cannot afford."

"Ha!" freak laughed. "I told you you're useless!"

Itachi remained perfectly still. If Leader had not just informed him he no longer allowed to even _attempt_ to kill new members he would have been on the freak like tarnish on silver.

"You can't remain a member. Your ties to the organization are now dissolved. And of course, that means you can no longer remain at the base, which means you have to leave. But if you leave, then we'd have to kill you. So we can just kill you now and save ourselves the trouble."

He shook his head. "This for a girl? Regenerative? Hidan is more useful, and that's saying something."

"It's not just regenerating. Her blood contains unnaturally high levels of ketamine and keratonin, for anesthetic and muscle paralyzation. She's her own walking hospital."

"Oh, so she can paralyze herself? That must come in _so_ handy on the field of battle."

"Stop stalling, Itachi. I'm going to kill you now."

Would he really be so merciful? Someone _offering_ to kill him? That was definitely one way to disguise suicide. And technically it would be, because he would _let_ them. There was no question that if he didn't want them to they wouldn't be able to.

But a release from the constant pain that hung over him like the eternal torment of the damned… he would have been suicidal _not_ to pass it up.

"Actually, no, I'm not going to kill you."

Suicidal disappointment, swallow.

"Atogama is."

Oh. That wasn't so bad.

"Sasori, go get – Sasori, stop wandering around with a dazed smile and go get Atogama!"

Footsteps retreated into the distance.

Itachi cocked his head. "Smiling?"

Leader just gave a disgusted sigh. "Eris."

Of course, the kitty Sasori's lair was back by the old base, which was in the forest Eris was bound to, which meant… Well, it meant.

Footsteps, two sets, returning. The girl worked fast if she was walking already, after having been dragged into the base. Possibly more useful than he had first surmised.

He had a feeling he was being looked down on, which was understandable, due to the fact that he was sitting on the floor.

"Whaaaaaah ooooooooo aaaaaaaaaaaaant?" a weak voice hissed.

"Kill him."

"_Whaaad?!_"

"We can call it your first mission."

He stared sightlessly up at where her voice originated.

"Noooooooooo." Her voice was getting stronger.

"…What did you just say?"

"Nooo."

"You say that like you have a choice in the matter. This is your _mission_: kill your ex-partner."

"No. I don't have my weapons on me."

Weapons? She actually had weapons? _Wonder what she used…_ He pushed his katana toward her.

She picked it up.

"No."

"You have no choice, girl."

"No, I don't want to!" She sounded like she was getting choked up.

Itachi was getting impatient. "Do it. If you don't we'll both end up dead, and that would be a terrible waste." He tilted his head, exposing the side of his neck. "Please."

She didn't respond.

He thought of Isuki, waiting for the delivery of cold steel. Her expression had been so full of hardness and menace just before… And then her face had flickered. Her eyes had widened in blank horror and she had cocked her head.

_"Daddy?"_

* * *

_Well, here we are. The bitter end. I'd love to get reviews and such, but I won't demand them because I hate it when people do that. It would just be really nice to know what you guys think every once in a while. Bye!_


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